Faith
by SushiChica
Summary: Sometimes the best friends make the worst enemies. [StarRob][RaeBB][CyOC][ExBoyfriend Continuity]
1. Out of the Hospital, Into the Fire

Hey there!

If you're reading this right now, you apparently have no fear of the slightly more than insane. Congratulations! Welcome to the club, and welcome to…

**Faith: Sequel to ExBoyfriend!**

A mere week ago I finished **ExBoyfriend**, yet since chapter 4 of it I've been planning the sequel. I've been wanting to do this for some time, and finally, the time has come! I'm very excited and I hope you are too. Since I started on this site, my writing has dramatically improved (from the absolute crap it was when I'd just begun) and I owe most of that to all of you guys giving me encouragement and good old fashioned constructive criticism. SO THANK YOU ALL!

I have a few things I need to make clear before beginning:

**-:-**My Pairings Are As Follows:

_StarRob  
__RaeBB  
__CyOC_

**These pairings are not changing. Do not ask me to change them, as they are the pairings I like and have chosen to write about. If you _do_ ask me to change them or bitch about them in any reviews you may leave me, I will hunt you down and set fire to your computer. And you. And maybe your couch just for fun. I'm just kidding! Well…about the couch part anyways. If it's cushy enough, there's no point in burning it…**

That said…-grin-

**-:-**There are some of you who say that I'm the best authoress on fanfiction . net, or at least of the Teen Titans section. While I'm positively flattered and very honored and I thank you from the bottom of my heart for thinking as such, I hastily assure you that this is _not_ true. Have you ever read…

**--True Love** by Twin-Lupus?

**--Normal Teenage Life** by Queen-of-Azarath?

**--College Life** by Jackalobe?

**--Once Again**/**Going Home**/**Complicated** by StarFireFlower?

**--Jealousy is Evil** by StarryRavenFire?

These five are brilliant and lengthy fanfictions, the authoresses who write just as well, if not much _much_ better, than myself. Spare them some time, I'm sure you will enjoy them immensely. I know I do!

**-:-Totally Random but Very Important Note:** There is a MAJOR difference between a "valley girl" and a "prep". _Preps_ are bitchy, perky, sluts who make you want to drive a sharp and pointy object through their thick and air filled skulls and can be found in pretty much every school in the world. _Valley girls _are specifically _from the valley_, (hence the name) and though they do have something of a "valley accent" that makes them sound a bit ditzy and they DO say 'like' rather often, they are NOT stupid, nor are they perky or bitchy or slutty. Well, okay, so there are some exceptions, but really, there is a HUGE difference between a prep and a valley girl. I know, for one, as I am a valley girl, and talk kinda ditzy-ish and say 'like' and 'totally' a lot and draw out some of my vowel sounds. Just because I am a valley girl, however, I AM NOT A PREP. Just making this clear. Me? I'm specifically an artsy/rebel who hangs with the other artsy/rebels and hippies and burnouts. Me, a valley girl? Totally. Me, a prep? Yeah, right.

Just thought I'd make that distinction.

**-:-**I'm sure that those of you who are fans of **ExBoyfriend** are used to my ramblings, and can just kinda…let my idiotic babble slide as always. For those of you that are just tuning in, you MIGHT wanna read **ExBoyfriend** first, otherwise there will be a TON of stuff you won't understand and I have no intention of explaining again. Plus, you won't be used to my constant chatter, which seems to grow by the chapter…well, this is just the first chapter, in which I say a BUNCH of extra crap that I don't usually. However, I do tend to go on…and on…and on…so you might need to get used to that now.

Now, shall we begin? -Is very excited-

Dedication: First chapter of Faith goes to…-drum roll- StarryRavenFire! Wow girlie, we go back…waay back. Like…last year end of September back. I've enjoyed every moment of talking to you, and I love your stories! You've done so much for me, and I majorly owe you. Thanks for everything chica!

Disclaimer: _…and then I will enter through the vent and use my UltraSpork 2000 to take out the guard, then I'll hotwire the security camera which will give me full access to the security booth in general, where I can wipe my image from all the cameras. Now there's the matter of getting to the Teen Titans section of the building and-_ ahem! Um…what? I'm…I'm not planning to take over Teen Titans! Nope! Not me! I don't own anything! Don't be silly! I own nothing at all! _…note to self: Do not discuss evil "take-over-Teen-Titans-plans" in front of readers and reviewers where all can see…_

ANYWAYS…

* * *

_Some people say that life is short. Seize the moment, they say, an' they're right. If ya think about it, ya'll never know the dangers an' torments life can hold until ya get there. Hell, it could start as something ordinary, then suddenly the one who you loved an' were sure had loved you just as much can turn around an' stab you in the back to save his own sorry life. Seize the moment, they say, an' I couldn't agree more. Seize that moment an' hang on to it forever, because tomorrow ya'll might be dead. Dead, and brokenhearted. I should know. It's the story of my life…

* * *

_

Beast Boy cracked a sleepy eye open, unsure of where he was. The walls that surrounded him were a blinding white for his morning vision. The curtains were a bit easier to look at; dull, pale, and worn. A faint beep caught the Changeling's attention.

Ah, of course.

Beast Boy was in the hospital. Not as a patient, but a permanent visitor until Raven was deemed well enough to leave by her doctor.

Raven.

Beast Boy rubbed his head, hating himself for even considering what was in his mind. Just five nights ago, the empath had been shot four times successively with poisoned darts after a shower of previous ones had shattered her dark shield which, incidentally, was protecting them both. She'd been using too much energy, shrouding herself _plus_ he, which had caused the magic to eventually fail. Even then, she didn't move out of the line of fire, but stood her ground and took the rapid blows in an attempt to stop them from reaching her boyfriend. She'd been hurt because she was trying to protect him.

Again.

Beast Boy still remembered, quite clearly, the night that Raven had first kissed him. The circumstances weren't exactly romantic, in fact they were anything but. Starfire and Robin had been screaming their lungs out at one another over some huge misunderstanding involving mind control and a possessive ex-boyfriend with such power, Cyborg and the Changeling had built a fort of assorted objects in the middle of the living room to shield themselves, and then suddenly Raven came along, decided that she could feel, and kissed him. Kissing Raven for the first time had been just what he'd expected—passionate and intoxicating, with her light lavender scent lingering in the air even after she'd broken away and left the room. Ever since that night, though, Raven was rather protective of Beast Boy, constantly using her energy to not only shield herself, but he as well, and now going as far as taking hits for him. Beast Boy sighed softly, so as not to wake the healing empath, though his hand drifted to her face to tuck a stray lock of hair behind her ear. This was the third time in two months that Raven had to be hospitalized, and all because she was trying to protect him.

The decision he'd been forcing upon himself was ripping him apart.

On the bright side, today was the day that Raven was supposed to be released. Her condition was stable and the poison cured. There was just a matter of the doctor releasing her. Another miraculously rapid recovery made by the empathic Titan herself.

"Can we go home now?" Beast Boy's head, which had fallen into his hands so he got a lovely view the floor as he thought, jerked upward at the sound of Raven's voice.

"You're awake?"

"Well obviously." Despite her sarcastic words, the empath's soft smile was kind. Her eyes were mere slits as they slowly grew accustomed to the too-bright fluorescent lights of the hospital room.

"You're being released today." Beast Boy rose from the chair that he had awoken in and kissed Raven on the forehead.

"Finally…I was ready to knock out that new nurse…you know, the one who kept talking to me like I was five-"

"_Good morning young lady!_" A plump nurse with a wide smile and a fake 'cutesy' voice entered the room, causing Raven to groan.

"And the doctor wonders how I healed so fast…"

"I'm sorry, I didn't get that! I said_, good morning young lady!_" Beast Boy restrained the urge to laugh. The new nurse really was…something else. Perhaps not of this earth. But no, that'd be offensive to Starfire…_nauseating _was probably the best word for her.

"Why don't you go suck a helium tank or something? Your voice is wearing off…" Raven rolled her eyes and the nurse's smile shrunk a few molars.

"Well…you're getting out sometime today! Doesn't that _excite_ you?"

"If it means getting away from you, then consider me ecstatic." At this point, Beast Boy jumped out of his chair and quickly escorted the nurse out of the room, who looked ready to chuck her clipboard at the wounded empath.

"Look, now's not the best time. She just woke up…she's a bit grumpy…"

"No kidding…" The cutesy voice and the face widening smile were gone.

"Hey, watch it. One day, she'll save your life if she hasn't already." The nurse fell silent.

"I'll get the doctor."

"You do that." Beast Boy returned to the interior of Raven's hospital room and grinned at her sheepishly. "I can see why you're so eager to bail on this place." The empath struggled to sit up as the Changeling came to her side and put himself at her eyelevel.

"I told you." He pressed his lips to hers, glad that Raven was alive and well again. His decision making could be put on hold for the time being.

* * *

"Red Bull?" Robin slid a blue and white tin can across the counter, sipping from his own. The recipient of the energy drink smiled and shook her head, causing her pretty red hair to scatter across her shoulders. 

"I believe I am well without the drink of colored farm animals."

"Suit yourself." The Teen Wonder leaned forward, using his hand to push a thick lock of hair behind her ear. "Princess." Starfire flushed at the affectionate nickname and took the strong hand that lingered in her hair with tapered fingers. For a moment, time stood still as the two stared at one another with smiling eyes.

"Morning ya'll!" Cyborg stepped through the door with a wide yawn, his eyes falling on the couple in the kitchen just in time to see them jump apart. "Oh…uh…am I interrupting something or…?"

"No…no, it's cool Cy." Robin shot Starfire a small smile, then moved away from the counter. "I was just about to go out for my run."

"Man, you run like fifty miles a day!"

"_Five_, Tin Man. There's a big difference." The Teen Wonder shrugged then gestured to the doors leading to his room. "I'd better go change." With another fleeting grin aimed at Starfire, he left.

"Cute. Very cute." Cyborg rolled his eyes and grabbed the milk from inside the refrigerator, drinking it straight from the carton.

"Raven would turn you into an unfeasibly large piece of liver if she saw you contaminating the milk." Starfire gazed at her friend with a smirk.

"Well then it's a good thing she's not home, isn't it?"

"We're home!" Beast Boy flew into the kitchen in the form of a bird and landed on the floor-human again-with about as much grace as a donkey tripping over a rock. Raven followed a few steps behind, her eyes sweeping over the area as though she expected all hell to have broken loose since she had been hospitalized.

"Welcome home friend! I am glad to see you well again!" Starfire smiled pleasantly.

"Raven!" Cyborg's human eye nearly popped out of his head. "You're back!" The half metal Titan laughed nervously as he inched the carton of milk back into the refrigerator.

"So I am." Her gaze settled on his upper lip. "You have milk on your face by the way."

"Really? I'd better go to the bathroom and wipe it up then, okay ya'll?" And in the blink of an eye, Cyborg was gone. Beast Boy and Starfire could've sworn that he was near hysterical, but Raven seemed indifferent. With a gentle shrug, she crossed the kitchen to the refrigerator and pulled out the milk, grimacing at the carton's rim then draining the nearly full container into the sink and tossing the remains into the garbage bin, muttering something about 'rapidly spreading germs' under her breath. Beast Boy hastily excused himself from the kitchen as well, saying he had 'some important stuff to do'. When Raven had asked what kind of stuff, he'd merely said 'just stuff.'

Like prepare his deathbed.

* * *

It was around mid-afternoon when Cyborg returned to the kitchen for the first time since morning, in search of a large pastrami sandwich or some sort of meaty meal after a tiresome array of activities such as training and car perfecting. It brought a grin to his face just to think about his upgraded baby…and to think, he'd be getting those new parts in soon… 

"Friend Cyborg, you are troubled." The robotic man whipped around to see Starfire staring at him innocently, a glass of water in her hand.

"What're you talkin' bout little lady? I happen to be thinkin' about my car. My car makes me happy."

"It is not just now, but I speak for the last few weeks as a whole. You are tormented emotionally. Why is this so?" Cyborg winced. Why were Tamaranians so good at discerning emotions? Even the ones who _couldn't _read minds or see souls seemed to have an excellent perception for what people were feeling. "I am not meaning to be offensive in any way, but oftentimes you humans are more expressive than you mean to be. As one who comes from a planet of pure emotions, I am able to easily tell what you are feeling. And recently, you have been feeling unsettled and out of place. Why is it that you feel as such?"

"Star…" Cyborg sighed, almost restlessly. "I…it's complicated."

"So complicated that you can not confide in I, your friend?"

"Look…"

"There is nothing to look _at_! As you earthen people enjoy saying, _spill_, though I am still unsure what exactly you are spilling…" Starfire considered this for a second, then looked back up at Cyborg with waiting eyes.

"…Robin's stubbornness is rubbin' off on you. I don't like it." The robotic man snarled, but he sighed with defeat. "I don't know if I'm the only one who's noticed, but everyone in the Tower's been paired off, with the obvious exception of yours truly."

"Dear friend Cyborg, it was merely coincidence that you have not found a female yet! I am sure that there is someone for you, as I believe that there is someone for everyone. One must simply wait."

"Yeah? How long?"

"As long as it takes." Starfire shrugged. "You will never know until you find her."

"…You're right." Cyborg smiled slightly, chugging the can of soda that he had retrieved and tossing the can into the trash receptacle before continuing. "I feel better. Thanks."

"It was my pleasure, friend. It is an unpleasant feeling to know that someone close to you is grieving."

"I wasn't _grieving_, Star. I was just a little…I don't know, bothered that I'm the only one not hooked up. Hey, where's your boy anyways?"

"He has not yet returned from his morning run…" Starfire looked slightly troubled at this revelation.

"I'm sure he's fine. We're talking about Robbie-Poo, remember?" The Tamaranian princess looked slightly miffed at the nickname and Cyborg decided to backtrack topics a bit. "Are you really sure about that whole 'there's someone for me' thing? I mean, I even tried a couple dates, and they turned out to be God-awful rich brats."

"…Simply keep in mind what I have told you." Starfire tilted her head slightly, patting her cybernetic friend on the back before rinsing her own glass and setting it in the sink.

"Yeah, yeah. There's someone out there for me and for all I know, she could be standing on the front doorstep."

"I did not say she would be on our front doorstep! You may search for _years_ before-"

Suddenly, the doorbell rang.

* * *

Beast Boy sat on the bed with his head in his hands, his muddled mind aching. Who knew a decision like this could be so hard? He knew he'd have to do it _eventually_, with the way things were going. It was more a matter of _when. _He didn't want to, but there seemed to be no other choice. Unfortunately, either way, better or worse, Raven would end up getting hurt, and hurting Rae was the last thing he'd ever want to do. 

He was jolted out of his contemplative state when he heard the doorbell rang.

* * *

Raven levitated a good foot above her bed, her eyes following several lines of ancient text from one of her oldest books. Her mind was wandering though, and she could barely concentrate on her favorite novel without letting her eyes wander around her room. It was Beast Boy. Something was wrong. He was mixed up, somehow. She could look into his thoughts, but she'd made a personal promise to herself that she'd never read someone's mind without their consent, unless circumstances were extreme. There were times where she would accidentally get glimpses, like the time she'd had that conversation with Starfire during her crazy ex-boyfriend Scorpio's stay, but aside from that, she intended to keep her long practiced credo. Beast Boy was troubled though, there was no denying that. The only question was why. 

The doorbell rang loudly throughout the Tower. Why Cyborg had felt it necessary to connect the loud visitor announcer to every speaker in every room of the Titans' home was beyond her, but Raven needed something to take her mind off her thoughts. With nothing better to do, the empath lowered herself to the floor, returned the worn and fragile volume to one of her many bookshelves, and exited her room in search of the visitor.

* * *

"I got it…" Cyborg rose from the counter and headed for the door. Starfire merely shrugged and allowed the robot to continue on his self set task, opening up the dishwasher and replacing a few of the clean plates in their respective cabinet spaces. The cybernetic man punched in the unlock sequence into the keypad at his right, then waited as the tumblers undid themselves and the door slid open. A girl no older than seventeen stood on the doorstep, her azure eyes not on the door but gazing upward, examining the building. She was tall, but not so tall as to tower over the cybernetic man. He held a good three inches on her, if not slightly more. "…Can I help you?" 

"Oh!" The girl's head snapped back downward, surprised. "I'm sorry! I didn't know you'd answered the door…" She bit her lip, voice layered with a heavy southern accent. "Is there a…a Starfire livin' here?"

"Yeah…let me go get her for ya…" Cyborg made his way back to the kitchen where he found Starfire up to her elbows in dish soap. Obviously, she had decided to get her chores done early. "You've got someone at the door askin' for ya. She didn't look like a crazed fan, so I think it's okay."

"Allow me to rid myself of these suds and I shall be there at once." Starfire smiled and began rinsing her hands. Cyborg shrugged and returned to the door.

"She'll be out in a second."

"I can wait." The girl shrugged, pushing a lock of wavy brown hair behind her shoulder. It had to be at least as long as Starfire's if not longer. As she did, Cyborg could've sworn he'd seen an awful scar that looked like crawling vines on the girl's neck. An instant later, they were gone, so the robotic man shrugged it off as a trick of the light. His eyes wandered the rest of her form. She wasn't quite as...shapely as Starfire; her frame was more athletic. The girl's posture was straight, giving off an air of confidence, strength, and supreme independence. This girl, whoever she was, would have no problem taking care of herself. Her smile, however, was kind.

"So…who exactly are you?"

"Hmm?" The brunette looked to the side. "Oh…that's a bit of a complicated question…"

"Why? Wait, let me guess: you lost your memory or something." Cyborg grinned, and the girl flashed a soft smile in return.

"No, nothin' so clichéd as that. It's just…"

"Friend Cyborg, who is it at the door-" Starfire had just wormed her way out of the Tower from behind the half metal man before stopping dead in her tracks.

"Uh…Star? Do you know her?" Cyborg watched as the Tamaranian girl stood in shock, a mixture of joy, hope, confusion, doubt, and finally fear on her face as she gazed at the newcomer.

"I…I…" It seemed that the fear had dominated, because once the red head had finally put her head back together, she let a shrill scream of terror erupt from her mouth and shoved Cyborg back into the house.

"Star! Star, what the-"

"What's going on?" Raven and Beast Boy had rushed in from opposite doors of the welcoming hall. Their eyes fell on their fear-ridden friend, then wandered toward the girl at the door, who looked thoroughly concerned. The brunette took a step into the interior of the Tower; a step toward Starfire.

"Starfire, honey, I know it's not exactly easy to understand…"

"Stay away from her." Raven flew in front of the newcomer to block her path. "Something about you is scaring her. What did you do to her?"

"I didn't do anythin' to her! Why would I?"

"Dude, why should we trust that you haven't done anything if we don't even know who you are?" Beast Boy had taken up Raven's post in blocking the way as the empath went to try to help the near hysterical Tamaranian girl.

"I…" The brunette chewed on her lip, gazing at Starfire whose breathing seemed to be labored. "Fine. Fine. Ya'll want to know who I am? My name's Taurus. I'm Starfire's best friend."

As though these words were a confirmation of what Starfire feared most, she let out a small squeak, then fainted dead away at Raven's feet.

* * *

Cyborg smiled at the newcomer, not immediately noticing that Starfire had fainted. 

"Now was that really so hard to say little lady?"

"Well I don't know, ask your friends over there." Taurus leisurely pointed to the two girls behind him. Starfire lay unconscious at Raven's feet, and the empath's mouth hung open.

"Um…Raven, you okay? Never seen you so…um…what's the word I'm searching for…_shocked?_"

"Not only that, but she looks startled." Beast Boy nodded professionally, and Cyborg merely rolled his eyes. Taurus laughed softly.

"Wow…I didn't think my arrival would make such an…_impact…_" Her southern drawl seemed out of place, as she _was_ apparently an alien, but the Titans let this fact slide as they neared the unconscious Starfire.

"You sure you're a friend dude? Star flipped when she saw you…"

"Beast Boy, I believe her." Raven's jaw had snapped back into place, but a mystified look remained in her violet eyes. "I can think of several different reasons why Starfire would be petrified by this sudden appearance. Beast Boy, Taurus is supposed to be-"

"What's going on here?" Robin entered through the door, sweat dripping down his face.

"Um…that's kinda complicated dawg." Cyborg turned to face his friend, and found the brunette who called herself Taurus standing just beside him. "Do _you_ know this girl? Supposedly she's your girlfriend's best friend-"

"_Girlfriend?_" Taurus' eyes got as large as dinner plates. "Starfire…she…an'…you're Starfire's _boyfriend_?"

"Um…yeah…and, well, you can't be Starfire's _best_ friend. She told me her best friend was Taurus and-"

"Well who the hell do ya'll think I am?" The brunette eyed him warily.

"But…wait that's impossible-"

"This isn't making any sense." Raven stood up, levitating Starfire in front of her. Her eyes examined Taurus carefully. Everything from her brown boots to the matching brown Stetson atop her head was taken in. "Are you some kind of spirit or ghost or-?" Her monotonous voice was overpowered by the team leader's strong one.

"Whoa, what happened to Star?" Robin's mask contorted, and he came up closer to see the pretty Tamaranian, unconscious.

"She fainted of shock."

"But why…?"

"Robin…this _is_ Taurus. I don't know how, and I don't know why, but she's not lying. I can feel it."

"_Will everyone please just shut up so that one _single_ person can explain this mess in short, compete sentences containing no words over two syllables?_" The Titans quieted at Beast Boy's sudden outburst.

"We should get Starfire to somewhere that she can lie down properly first." Raven shrugged and lead the way to the living room where she rested her unconscious friend on the couch. The Titans and the newcomer gathered around, with the exception of the empath who had gone to retrieve a damp towel.

"Okay, so why is this such a complicated matter? Man, it's just Starfire's best friend. I don't think she'll do anythin' crazy like Scorpio…"

"Scorpio?" Taurus glanced up from her place at Starfire's side, alert. "What about him? What'd he do? He did somethin' awful didn't he?"

"Long story…" Robin resisted the sudden urge to shudder. "The point is, aren't you supposed to be-"

"Yeah really," Raven interjected as she leaned over the backside of the couch, pressing the washcloth to Starfire's head, "weren't you declared-"

"It seems you two have heard my story." Taurus interrupted, a small smile playing at her lips, but her eyes still concerned. Her gaze shifted to Beast Boy and Cyborg. "But apparently they haven't…?"

"Obviously not." Beast Boy was visibly unhappy being out of the loop. "But if you're so buddy-buddy with Starfire, _why did she freak out_?"

"Well, it would probably be best for you to know that I-"

"Beast Boy, she's supposed to be-"

"Yeah, everyone thought she was-"

"_Dead_…" Came a ghostly hollow voice. The Titans and the newcomer all turned to look at Starfire, who seemed to be awake again but still obviously frightened. "You are supposed to be _dead._" Her words came slowly, as though she were learning to speak all over again.

"I know, honey…" Taurus sighed and shook her head, causing her wavy brunette tresses to fall over her face. She took Starfire's hand into her own, squeezing it reassuringly. "I know."

* * *

Well…how was that for a first chapter? Egh…I'd say rough. Messy. Kinda jumbled.I know I'm gonna go back and edit it eventually…the first like…three chapters will be rough and rocky and only okay written, but the rest will be a whole lot better. Promise. 

Anyways, I kinda tried to model this first chapter after the first chapter of **ExBoyfriend**. It is, after all, a sequel. **Faith **will be very different from it's predecessor though, so don't fear.

**A Note:** I recently got a review for **ExBoyfriend, **which basically said "great story" (thank you for the compliment) yet "you trashed the whole last chapter by putting so many curse words in it." (This was not a direct quote, merely a summary of the review.)

Okay, let's go through this…

Unless I am trying to stress the seriousness of a situation, (like when Raven says "Oh shit" when she sees Starfire and Scorpio making out) I will NEVER make a canon character cuss, unless it is established that they do in the real show. I have stuck to that personal rule. I will also NEVER make a canon character cuss _excessively_, under any circumstances, unless that too is established as a trait by the creators. However, the person I had in the last chapter of **ExBoyfriend** who was cussing up a storm was not a canon, but an ORIGNIAL character by the name of Aquarius. Aquarius is not the nicest person in the world to people she doesn't like. Would you rather Aquarius be a lovely perfect Mary Sue who does no wrong? She has anger issues. It's her PERSONALITY. The fic was, after all, rated 'T' for a reason. I rest my case.

But really, am I alone in that? I mean, I have no problem with constructive criticism. Ask CidGregor, who is probably my harshest critic (yet a very nice person in general)! He gives me all sorts of tips to improve my writing, and I take them and use them. I have NO problem with constructive criticism, I just don't approve of people trying to alter an original character's personality. (I wouldn't even have a problem with THAT had Aquarius been a Mary Sue, but it is very obvious that she is NOT perfect, and IS flawed. Her flaw is her anger.)

Anyways, I hope you enjoyed the first chapter, and I look forward to putting up the second!

Love,  
SushiChica


	2. Visitation from the Undead

I think…I'll just get right down to it with chapter two…

Disclaimer: **The Transitive Property of Ownership: **_Me_ **equals** Californian Artsy Rebel Valley Girl Authoress. _Californian Artsy Rebel Valley Girl Authoress_ **equals** No ownership of Teen Titans. **Therefore, **_No ownership of Teen Titans _**equals** Me.

For all the math people out there… -grin- not that I'm one of your blessed kind…

Dedication: To **CheerfulOblivious**. You've been reviewing me forever, and here's my chance to properly thank you! Applause! Applause! Thanks for being there for my sad fics chica. -smile-

* * *

The Titans and Taurus all sat around the table in the dining room, if you could call it that, assorted beverages scattered across the surface. Nobody spoke, and nobody had since they had all settled in their seats. Raven took a sip of her tea and blankly stared at the wall. Beast Boy, who sat beside her, pulled at his spandex suit and fidgeted constantly, glancing at his girlfriend every so often. Starfire was at the head of the table, eyes fixated on the girl who called herself Taurus. Robin cleared his throat to the red head's left for the third time in five minutes, hoping to spark some sort of conversation. His efforts were fruitless, to his disappointment. Cyborg, from his seat between his leader and the newcomer, twitched uncomfortably at the lack of interaction. Never had Titans Tower been so silent.

"So…Starfire…" The half metal man could take the staring no longer. "Taurus was your best friend on Tamaran."

"Correct, she _was_." Starfire's icy and unbelieving gaze was still locked on the brunette. "But she is _dead_. This was confirmed by the finest doctor in all of Tamaran. I do not know what you are, but you are _not_ my dear friend."

"Sweetie, do I look dead to you?" Taurus tapped the table with a blue coated fingernail.

Her twin gold rings sparkled in the afternoon sun pouring through the paneled windows.

"Well…no…" Starfire faltered. The sight of her best friend, if it were truly she, after two long years was too much for her to handle. Tears sparkled at the edges of her eyes.

"Then I'm here, I'm alive, so stop worryin'!"

"How can I stop worrying? It is as though you have returned from the dead!"

"Damn straight." The Titans watched the two girls with curiosity. "And Star, honey, don't cry. You know I can't stand it when you cry."

"You are not Taurus. It is not possible."

"Test me. Ask me anythin'. I'm who I say I am." Starfire's eyes flared, the tears evaporating.

"Very well. I shall quiz you. One mistake, however, and I swear I shall blast you into the next dimension!"

"Yeah, yeah. Ask away." Taurus rolled her eyes but smiled. Her friend had learned to express her aggression. That was a good thing. The questioning began.

"What is my true name?"

"Koriand'r"

"What color are the eyes of Gemini and Geminey?"

"Violet."

"Where did we often do the 'hanging out'?"

"Wend'xn Ridge, an' sometimes the Palace Gardens."

"What is my favorite color?" Taurus gave her friend a look which quite clearly said _you've got to be kidding me_.

"Purple."

"What was my most embarrassing moment of all the meetings with the Royal Council which I was forced to attend?" Starfire grinned in spite of her doubt. Her supposed 'friend' laughed as well.

"You walked into the council room in your pajamas as a short cut to the palace kitchens thinkin' it would be empty, but really there was a meetin' goin' on. But, Star, I think all of Tamaran would know the answer to that one. You know how crazy our people can get…"

"Who did brother Ryand'r often do the 'hanging out' with?"

"My sister Libra." Taurus smirked. "C'mon Star! Gimmie some hard ones."

"Who was the first boy I wished to court me?" Robin's eyes popped open at these words.

"My brother Leo." Both Raven and Beast Boy restrained laughs at the expression on their leader's face.

"What is my greatest fear?"

"To be eaten by a numbnar." The silent Titans exchanged odd glances.

"With whom did I share my first kiss?" Now Robin's eyes were practically sagging out of their sockets. Cyborg and Beast Boy were on the verge of hysteria, while Raven merely smiled.

"Up until the time I was pronounced dead, you hadn't kissed anyone at all. After that, I can't be sure." Robin released a sigh of relief.

"We would often play games as children. What game was our favorite?" Taurus' face brightened at the question. Apparently, it pleased her.

"I thought you might've forgotten, sugar! I'm glad the past hasn't been wiped away. Our favorite was the war game, where we'd trade roles as the Gordanians an' the Tamaranians. Tamaran always won, of course."

"At what age did we meet?" Starfire's expression, which had started as steely and unbelieving, was slowly melting to warmth and hope, with a hint of recognition.

"You were ten. I was eleven."

"From where did I acquire your lasers, and for what birthday did I present them to you?"

"Warlords of Okaara. Thirteen."

"At what age were we enlisted in the Tamaranian Army?"

"You were fourteen. I was fifteen."

"What did I want most dearly at the age we met?" Taurus looked her best friend dead in the eye.

"Someone to understand you. A true friend who didn't give a damn about who you were."

"What were my views on being of the Royal Family?" Starfire looked at the brunette critically. These last questions were key factors in her belief.

"You hated it, honey. You hated being treated differently from everyone else. You hated that nobody thought you'd make a good ruler." Taurus bit her lip and smiled softly. "You hated that even though you were royalty, nobody believed in you."

"Very well. I have one final question for you." Starfire was smiling widely now, her eyes brimming with tears again; tears of excitement.

"Shoot." Taurus was grinning as well, pushing her Stetson up slightly and leaning forward.

"What scores did we receive on our combat exams?"

"One hundred an' fifty percent…" The two girls rose again, now almost laughing, both sets of eyes shining brightly.

"Extra credit for excellent team combat!" They finished together, shrieking simultaneously and leaping at each other from across the table. They embraced one another in midair, smiling and laughing and crying all at once. Taurus' foot hit Beast Boy's glass of soda, but the two girls scarcely noticed the Changeling's protests of annoyance.

Confused though she was, there was no mistaking the joy alight in Starfire's emerald eyes. Their happiness was interrupted, however, by the wail of a siren. Taurus jumped back, startled.

"What the hell is that?"

"Titans alarm system." Raven explained, standing up. "We have to go."

"Titans what now?"

"Taurus…the Teen Titans, my friends, we are super heroes." Starfire smiled apologetically, leaping from the tabletop and taking to the sky once again. "I am truly sorry, but we must take leave of you now to save the city. We will return shortly, I am sure."

"She's got that right." Robin stood as well, running for the door. "Titans, GO!" Raven had phased into the floor before the team leader had even finished his exclamation, and Beast Boy jumped out of his chair, stumbling after his teammates, still grumbling about perfectly good spilled soda. Cyborg, however, lagged behind. He gave the Taurus a quick wink and tossed her hat back to her. She caught it with an odd expression on her face, not even previously aware that it'd left her crown.

"Ya dropped that." He jetted away before she could utter a word of thanks. The brunette was left alone and speechless. Slightly befuddled at what had just happened, the Tamaranian girl hopped off the table and placed the brown Stetson back on her wavy brown hair. Starfire's words ran through her mind.

"…_we must take leave of you now to save the city."_

Taurus' mouth rapidly changed from a smile to a grim slash as the words registered. Her hands settled on the twin laser shooters given to her so many years ago.

"Honey," The brunette growled as though Starfire were right in front of her. "You're goin' into battle, then I'm comin' with ya." With that, Taurus flew from the room and after her best friend.

* * *

Starfire had her arms folded to her chest, flying downwards in a straight nosedive with her eyes glowing green. Beside her was Raven, a look of determination burning in her eyes. Her mouth was moving, but the wind that flooded her ears kept the Tamaranian princess from hearing the words. Starfire could only assume that her empathic friend was merely reciting her usual mantra, readying her powers for use. The two had gotten instructions via com-link as they had traveled to the heart of Jump City, and now that plan was being put to action. Starfire and Raven would move in first, making the initial attack, followed by Robin, Cyborg, and Beast Boy. If all went well, the fight would be over in a good ten minutes.

After all, it was just a group of punks stealing from a couple of stores.

"There!" Starfire pointed to a small cluster of boys dressed in black, one holding a bat and proudly gesturing at the window he'd broken using it. The girls landed in unison, glaring at the teenagers angrily. It turned out that they were not all boys. A few girls lingered in their ranks.

"Drop the bat." Raven glanced sharply at the obvious leader of the group, who clutched the bat to his chest.

"Hell no!"

"Fine then, I'll _make_ you." The empath's eyes glowed white and the weapon flew into her outstretched hand.

"Hey! Not cool, yo!" The boy made a rude hand gesture, to which Raven merely rolled her eyes.

"Check it out…" A few more punks rounded the corner to join the ranks. "It's the Teen Titan chicks."

"I am _not_ a young chicken and am exhausted of hearing such preposterous accusations!" Starfire's eyes flashed dangerously.

"The Goth's pretty damn hot…"

"Shut up you idiot! She'll kill you!" Even from where they stood, the two female Titans could smell the distinct aroma of beer lacing the air. It was quite clear to both that these teens were drunk.

"What do you say?" Raven shot Starfire a sideways glance. "Take them down and tie them up?"

"Agreed, friend." Before they could make a move, however, their communicators buzzed loudly.

"_Starfire…Raven…come in…"_ Robin's voice emitted from both tiny devices. The empath snatched her com-link and spoke into it.

"Whatever you have to say, Boy Blunder, say it fast. We've got hostiles closing in and…"

"_Can you… take… gang alone…?"_ The connection was bad in those parts.

"We are able!" Starfire announced into her own communicator, backing up slightly as she noticed the teens advancing slowly. "Our opponents are intoxicated, thus we will not require assistance."

"_Good…trouble…other side of…"_ The transmission dropped completely.

"What was it that he wished to tell us?" Starfire looked at Raven expectantly, both girls putting away their communicators.

"Basically that we're alone on this one." The empath flashed her friend a grin before waving her hand to create a barrier between the advancing gang and the two Titans.

"Very well, friend." Starfire smiled as well, her hands glowing with dangerously powerful green orbs.

"Go easy on them, Starfire. They're just kids." A high powered blast erupted to their right. The Tamaranian and the empath bounded to the side, both wide eyed and surprised.

"…Raven?"

"Yeah?"

"You say they are 'just kids'…but they are hardly younger than you or I…and they are armed with…minute bombs?"

"Yeah…take back that last thing I said about going easy on them…"

* * *

Robin, Beast Boy, and Cyborg stood side by side, staring down a crowd of tough but drunk looking gangsters. They grinned and slurred their words, but the guns in their hands were pretty damn threatening. These weren't normal guns either. High powered rifles were a better term for them.

"Where did they get that kind of firepower?" Robin wondered aloud, waiting to see if the wasted teens would make the first move.

"Who cares? Let's go guys!" Beast Boy leaped forward, taking the shape of a cheetah.

"B! Don't!" It was too late. The guns began blasting wildly, but thankfully the aim wasn't too good. Robin and Cyborg jumped out of the way, but the Changeling was in the direct line of fire. Suddenly, a robotic hand with a wire attached snatched Beast Boy by the middle and pulled him behind a building.

"Heh…thanks Cy…" The green elf chuckled sheepishly, returning to his normal form at his friend's side as the robotic man reattached his hand.

"Next time, think before ya'll go racing into a bunch of idiots with peashooters like that!"

"Peashooters?"

"_Guns._"

"Oh…" Beast Boy rolled his eyes at Cyborg's techno-slang. "So what's the plan?"

"The plan?" The half robot shrugged his shoulders, eyeing the team leader who sat across the way. "Try not to get killed."

* * *

From the sky, Taurus scanned the large city that lay below. An explosion caught her eye, and the girl couldn't withhold a laugh. She'd be fighting side by side with Starfire once again. The most brilliant teenage combat team to enroll in the Tamaranian Army was about to be reborn at full force.

After such along time, this would be undoubtedly be fun to say the least.

* * *

Short chapter! Sorry guys. I think that was a little smoother than chapter one, which I am thankful for. Thanks for all the lovely reviews! You guys are really great. I figure it's the least I can do to mention each of you, to thank you properly. So…thank you to:

**Jimmy the Gothic Egg **(My first reviewer! Thank you!)**, Sasscreech, KorrianderX'Hal, differentdestiny4, Sintari-Moons, Akuhei Gin Kitsune, jess.known.as.abby.anonymous **(I have a note for you below…)**, RupertLover09, tigerchic121, Star+Robin, samanthe2121, Flames of the Sun, mysticmagicmage, Snea, Star's-Fire, StarryRavenFire, SecretIllusions, Heartfelt Dream, starrobin4eva, -'.EHWIES.'-, xox.Annie Potter.xox, Princess-Korriandre, The Eccentric CheezySquirrel, devilofheaven, xxSassyActressxx, ChatterBox101, Luisa Perez, jjangel9325232, Elihu **(SQUEE!)**, RainDragon, Queen-of-Azarath, robinstarfire4ever, and ****,DeathsLastBreath. **

Thanks all of you! I'd write review responses, but as that has been banned I cannot, and besides I'm VERY busy and often don't have time to write them all. So, in **Faith** I've decided to simply list all you to thank you! Why? Because you deserve it! So thank you, EVERYBODY!

A quick note to **jess.known.as.abby.anonymous: **You asked whether you could use some of **ExBoyfriend**'s OCs. (Like…Scorpio and Taurus' family, am I to assume?) While I'm TOTALLY flattered that you like my characters so much, I **CANNOT** and **WILL NOT** let you use them. The family is not for hire, not just to you but to everyone. They are solely for my use, and that is all. I'm sorry about that, but come on. You can make your own OC's! Hell, they're FUN to make. I had a ball creating mine. It also took me a good three days of continuous labor. I'm not giving up all that, trust me.

Anyways, I'll see you all in the next chapter! I hope you liked this one…drop a review on your way out!

Love,  
SushiChica


	3. The Tamaranian Two Sided Double Threat

You know writers block? Yeah, the thing where you know what you want to write but can't seem to put it into words? Or sometimes, in very severe cases, when you simply shrivel up from lack of ideas and STILL can't put anything into words that sounds halfway decent?

Writers block can **kiss my ass **and **burn in hell**.

Thank you to Queen-of-Azarath for helping me get…unblocked. You're awesome girlie!

CLAP FOR QUEENIE DAMMIT! WITHOUT HER, YOU WOULDN'T HAVE A CHAPTER!

-dead silence-

OKAY FINE! CLAP FOR HER BECAUSE SHE **FINALLY** POSTED THE FIRST CHAPTER OF HER SEQUEL TO THE TOTALLY AWESOME** NORMAL TEENAGE LIFE!**

-LOUD clapping-

There we go! If you haven't checked it out already, it's called **Return to Normality** and it's uber awesome. Lotsa the old school and even new age comix Titans! WHOO!

Disclaimer: If I owned Teen Titans, Robin wouldn't be saying cheesy lines like "Kardiac, you're under arrest!" Yeah. Just thought I'd mention that.

Dedication: To **Jimmy the gothic egg**! Nice um…penname. I wasn't aware that eggs could be gothic. Well, ya learn something new every day. Thanks for your reviews!

* * *

A second explosion shorted Raven's magic barrier entirely. The two female Titans were completely exposed. Time to switch to offense.

"Please, take the seven to the left!" Starfire called, already flicking her hand towards her self-designated batch of wasted punks. The first bomb chucker reeled backwards at the arsenal of green starbolts pelted at his feet.

"I'm on it." Raven extended her hands outwards, concentrating. "Azarath, Metreon, Zinthos…" Black magic glowed readily at her fingertips, and she used it to encase the three bombs already in the leading teen's hand. The explosives shuddered in midair, then deactivated themselves at the empath's will.

"You're gonna pay for that, gothic girl! You think I'm afraid of you?" The boy speaking spat at Raven's feet. Disgusted, the empath put two fingers to the teen's forehead.

"I don't know if you _were_, but you sure as hell _will_ be…" The boy's eyes popped open and he screamed in terror. Awful images flooded his mind. It was dark…and cold…and awful…"That's what I thought." Raven's gaze was cold as she removed her fingers and the boy collapsed to the floor. The dose of hell she'd provided was enough to shock him into unconsciousness. No point in driving him insane, unless he _really_ irked her for some reason…

Starfire let her eye beams bring a girl wearing a beanie to the floor, clutching her arm in pain and causing her to drop the gun she'd been holding and let out a string of four letter substitutes for the word 'ouch'. She was about to let off another round of starbolts when she felt a cold metal pressed against the back of her neck.

"If you move, I swear I'll shoot you." The voice was male. Tamaranians had many strengths, but being bullet-proof was not one of them.

"Let us be rational about this…I am sure that if we discussed it in a kind and tranquil manner…" There was a thud behind the red head and the cold metal feeling fall away.

"Honey, these types of people don't like to discuss things." Starfire whipped around to see Taurus floating behind her, a human boy sprawled below with a gun in his hand, double platinum lasers drawn and ready.

"Taurus! You should not be here! There is great danger and-"

"Are you kiddin' me? We fought in the Tamaranian _Army_ together. I think we can handle a few kids without much incident. Besides…" Taurus cocked her gun and fired a concentrated burst at the nearest teen, bringing him to his knees. "I haven't had this much fun in two years."

"But-"

"_I could use a little backup, Star!_" Raven called from her side, fighting four teen at once.

"Ya'll heard the woman." Taurus grinned and took off towards the empath, blasting with practiced precision. Starfire sighed softly, but took up a battle stance again when she found some of the punks had surrounded her. As she shot off multiple rounds of starbolts, the red head watched her friend fighting out of the corner of her eye. Taurus was good, if not even better than she used to be. The fight dragged on, and Starfire couldn't help but find herself laughing.

It really was nice to have Taurus back.

* * *

Beast Boy stared wide-eyed at the sight before him. These teens, whoever they were, did not intend to shoot at the Titans. Another gang had appeared on the other end of the street, and now the two groups were trading fire.

"Dude…we're in the middle of gang turf war crossfire…" The Changeling would have paled had his pigment allowed it.

"Yeah…and if we don't do somethin' fast, half these people will wind up dead."

"_Beast Boy…Cyborg…we're in the middle of a turf war!" _Robin's voice crackled from the communicators, scarcely heard over the sound of gunfire. Both Titans snatched their communicators and spoke the same words simultaneously.

"No frikin way…"

* * *

Robin closed the transmission, his mind devoid of possibilities. How the hell were three people, superheroes though they were, supposed to disarm two whole gangs? Two of them couldn't even _fly_ for God's sake…

What was that? Footsteps behind him! The Teen Wonder stiffened at the sound, maneuvering a set of freeze discs between his knuckles. As soon as the soft padding noises got close enough, Robin spun around only to come face to face with…

"Starfire?" The ebony haired teen's eyes swept his girlfriend's two companions. Raven and… "What are you doing here?"

"She wishes to assist us, Robin." Starfire stepped forward, extending her hand. "She is strong and sharp witted. I assure you that she will work efficiently. She was very useful in our first battle!" Instinctively, the leader turned to Raven for some sort of analysis.

"She_ is_ good." The empath admitted, sweeping her hood back gracefully. "Cut our fight time in half."

"So what's goin' down in these parts?" Taurus, tired of her abilities being questioned, was itching to return to the battle field. Robin tilted his head slightly and gave the three girls a quick rundown of the situation.

"Gang turf war. Fire from both sides. One gang's on the upper end of the street, one's on the lower. We need to disarm them without inflicting too much damage. Do us all a favor and try not to get shot…" Robin trailed off at the look in Taurus' eyes, crackling with merry dancing delight. Her anticipation was apparent as she excitedly grabbed Starfire by the shoulders.

"Star…you thinkin' what I'm thinkin'?" Starfire grinned eagerly, memories rushing through her veins.

"The Tamaranian Two Sided Double Threat."

"Exactly." Taurus released Starfire, positively joyful. "My, my, it's been a long while since we've done this. Should be fun."

"The Tamaranian what now?" Raven stepped forward, examining the two girls critically.

"The Tamaranian Two Sided Double Threat." Taurus explained, turning to the empath with a kind eye. "It's a famous war tactic that can only be done in pairs. Star an' I were masters of it."

"Robin…" Starfire reached out and laid a hand on her boyfriend's shoulder. "Please, alert Cyborg and Beast Boy to collect any fallen weapons as they see them. You and Raven shall do the same as well." The Teen Wonder raised an inquiring eyebrow and smirked.

"You're giving the orders now, Star?"

"Ya'll had better believe it!" Taurus cried happily, Raven shrinking back with an odd look as she did.

"Taurus…" Starfire shot a small glance at her friend and shook her head, then turned back to Robin. "Please, I do not wish to instruct you, it is just that…the idea is likely to work and-"

"Consider it done, Princess." Robin smiled, taking her hand from his shoulder and lightly pressing it to his lips. "I have no better plans."

"Princess?" Taurus wore a wild grin on her face, watching the two. "Okay then…let's kick gang banger ass!" She took to the sky and Starfire quickly followed, winking at Robin before departure.

"I don't know if you noticed or anything…" Raven stepped up to Robin's side once again, smirking slightly, "but we wasted valuable disarming time when you took the time to kiss your princess' hand."

"Ah, shut up." The two laughed lightly. "…Raven?"

"Yeah?" The empath looked up at her leader, who held a good four inches on her.

"…Beast Boy's made a…a good change in you possible." Robin smiled at her. "A very good change."

"I know…" Raven tucked a lock of hair behind her ear and prepared to set to work as soon as she saw some disarmed thugs. "I know."

* * *

Beast Boy and Cyborg had just received Robin's instructions, but were utterly confused. Collect all fallen weapons, the leader had simply said.

What fallen weapons?

Several green orbs and tawny colored bursts showered the ground, the former to the left and the latter to the right. Several guns spun out of drunk teen gang members' hands and clattered to the floor.

Oh. _Those_ fallen weapons.

* * *

Starfire and Taurus floated back to back, airborne, both releasing rounds of explosive energy with exact aim. How often they'd done this in the face of a Gordanian ambush. The brunette pushed up her Stetson with her left handed gun, the right still firing away. She laughed, relishing in the excitement of battle that she remembered so well.

"After bein' holed up for two years, this is a lovely welcome back to society!" Another four amber beams disarmed an equal amount of teens.

"Holed up for two years?" Starfire questioned, starbolts flying, "How is that you were-"

"Later, honey!" Taurus turned and grabbed her friend, pushing the red head to the side as a bullet sailed past. It seemed that the gangsters had taken to shooting at those disarming them rather than one another. The good news, however, was that their numbers had decreased exponentially. There were now little more than fifteen people on either end of the street. As each teen had lost their weapon, they'd run for fear of being shot without a weapon to shoot back with.

"Now what do we do?" Taurus eyed the field with care.

"Move closer and attack from behind." Starfire decided with an unusual confidence, her old war self coming back to surface with a smile.

"I like, I like!" The two girls nodded at one another and sailed in separate directions.

* * *

Raven watched on the roof of a building as her teammates worked. Robin was snaring grounded weapons with his grappling hook. Cyborg ran into the lightened crossfire, shielding all his human parts as best he could, and stanched at the guns left in fleeing gangster's wakes. She, herself, was using her telekinetic powers to raise any loose firearms to her position on the roof. She'd established quite a nice collection. And Beast Boy…where was Beast Boy?

"Rae…" The green teen appeared behind the empath, morphing from hawk to human and depositing the large weapon previously in his claws onto the pile next to her. "Are you alright?"

"Of course I'm alright." Raven scoffed, looking slightly confused. "Why wouldn't I be?"

"Uh…no reason…just…um…yeah…" And with that stuttered reply, Beast Boy leaped from the roof and soared back to the ground. There was definitely something wrong with him. Some kind of confusion existed within. She didn't even have to pry to feel it; the indecision freely flowed through his aura though she doubted that Beast Boy was aware of it.

As she continued to telekinetically retrieve weapons from the ground so many stories below, Raven's eyes drifted to Taurus, who seemed to have changed attack plans with Starfire as each had now descended to ground and were now fighting the few gangsters left at a much closer range. The empath watched as Taurus' lasers shot off many a weapon and sent many teens scampering away with their tail between their legs. Raven didn't really know what to think when it came to the newcomer. She'd only arrived around two hours ago, yet here she was fighting alongside the team as though she belonged. Not to say that she wasn't good with combat, she was. But then Terra had been good with that too. There was something different about Taurus, though, something kind. Raven wanted to trust this brunette. For some odd, unfathomable reason, she truly did. After all, she was Starfire's best friend and there was undoubtedly a good reason for that. After Terra, however, Raven felt that she could never be too careful. It seemed she'd just have to wait and see. She'd make her opinions on this newcomer later. For now, the empath decided as she saw Taurus and Starfire joining once again at the center of the street and fighting off the last of the teen gangsters, it was nice to have the newcomer for some backup.

* * *

WOW. I had SUCH a bad block on that. I actually don't think it turned out too bad. I mean, I probably could've done better, but…ahh well. I hope you liked it. I can promise that the next chapter will be longer and, as you have requested, reveal how Taurus came to be alive, find the Titans, and WHY THE HELL SHE HAS A SOUTHERN ACCENT.

I don't do things without a reason you know. If she had a southern accent, then she acquired it when she was…well…just know that there's a story behind it. In ANY case, I'll see you all in the next chapter!

Oh! And before I forget…some of you have commented on how just the idea of Taurus coming back won't make a full story. C'mon guys! _Trust_ me, I know what I'm doing. I think. -grin- I wouldn't have a story that was just like "OMGZZ! TAURUS IS BACK! HUG! THE END!" You guys should know me better than that.

Love,  
SushiChica


	4. Story of a Girl

Blegh. School starts like…next week…it seems too soon! But then, I have friends who started like a month ago…but hey, I got out pretty late…so yeah. You totally didn't need to know ANY of that…

Disclaimer: Rawr. I don't own them. Ask me again and I'll bite you.

Dedication: This chapter goes to...well…not some…_thing_ you'd expect. What does this chapter go to? **MY HIGH SCHOOL LIBRARY! **Now, you're probably thinking "why the hell would she dedicate a chapter to a high school library? Well I'll tell you. See, as soon as the school year starts, I will not be allowed on the internet for any purpose other than research for school. Meaning, I'd be forced into a **hiatus** of this story until Christmas. While I'm sure you guys wouldn't mind a break from me, but often the happiness in my day depends on the kind words that you, the reviewers, give me. It just brightens me, no matter what. I just don't think I could take loosing that. However, I just found out that when I start school next Tuesday, all hope is not lost. See, the computers in my library have high speed internet (Ooh! Aah!) and as a student, I'm allowed to access **any website I please**, even MySpace. So, I highly doubt the librarians would mind if I went on **fanfiction**. So, I figure I can just write my chapters at home and upload them when I need to on my school computer. NOW COME ON, DOES THAT NOT ROCK? **GO HIGH SCHOOL LIBRARY! YEAH!

* * *

**

A man with dark hair and hazel eyes who looked about the age of twenty leaned against the counter of the pizza place at which he worked, his pencil rising and falling steadily upon the page and book in front of him. It had been a particularly slow day, so what better time to catch up on his college calculus homework? He was often exhausted by the time his shift ended, the price of working at the most popular pizza place in Jump City, thus his calc work would always be left until he had a good amount of time to complete it, which wasn't often. The bell at the door rang, signaling a customer had arrived, so the man quickly scooped up his thick textbook and stuffed it under the counter. As soon as he looked up to greet the people before him, however, he knew he needn't have worried.

"Titans!" The man grinned at them. "How are you?"

"Vince." Robin inclined his head and smirked. "Table for six today." The man called Vince raised a questioning eyebrow, scanning the group. Why six…? Ahh. The waiter's eyes fell on an unfamiliar face.

"Right this way." The man led the group to a table near the back. "You'll have the usual, I suppose?" The Titans nodded, but the new girl looked slightly confused. "Miss? Do you know what you'd like, or…?"

"Vince, my man, the lady's new around these parts. Could you get her a menu?" Cyborg shrugged at the brunette. "Unless you'd like to try some of our pizzas?"

"I think I'll just sample from ya'll." The newcomer nodded her head at Vince politely. "Thanks though."

"No problem." The waiter smiled at the customers that made this particular pizza place so famous and retreated to the kitchens. "We got a full house!" Vince called back to the cook, indicating that there was a set of hungry Titans under their roof. Nodding, the cook set to work.

He had a heck of a lot of pizza to make.

"Alright, I don't suppose ya'll would wanna know what I'm doin' here?" Taurus smiled at the team, who'd received their drinks just minutes ago.

"Yeah, dude, we would like to know, actually." Beast Boy looked at the newcomer expectantly. "From what we can tell, you're supposed to be dead."

"That's right." The brunette nodded, pushing wavy locks over her shoulder and tugging at her brown jacket.

"But…the greatest doctor in all of Tamaran pronounced you dead! How were you able to return to life?" Starfire bit her lip, befuddled beyond reason.

"Who said anythin' about returnin' to life?" Taurus laughed softly. "Honey, you _know_ that's impossible."

"Then…how are you here?" Suddenly, the redhead girl squeaked with fear. "Are you an apparition of the dead? You are a ghost?"

"No, no, no. Nothin' of the sort!" Taurus placed a hand on her friend and pulled her back into the seat she'd risen from. "Have ya'll ever considered that the greatest doctor in all of Tamaran _lied_?" There was a dead silence from all the Titans. Even Beast boy stopped drinking his second soda of the day.

"Are you saying that you were never really dead?" Raven raised a curious eyebrow and took careful a sip of her iced tea. It needed sugar.

"Yep. Oh, I was pretty damn close, to be sure." Taurus' eyes sunk to the floor. "Those awful Gordanians tortured me within an inch of my life, but they were all idiots. I escaped them when they were negligent enough to leave me in an unlocked room to get more torture weapons."

"So, what happened to you after that?" Robin now spoke, his expression unreadable. It was that mask…

"Well, I found my way home. Everyone knows that." Taurus shrugged.

"But then you were pronounced dead." Cyborg fingered the straw in his water. "Why would the doctor need to lie about something like that? And why would he lie to your _family_ of all people? And your best friend?" The half robot gestured to Starfire with a tilt of his head.

"Well, my mother knew." Taurus looked at her friend with apologetic eyes. "It was a deal we'd worked out. There was little doubt that the Gordanians would come back for me if they knew I was alive, so I had to fake death in order to avoid endangerin' my family and you, Star. I wouldn't be able to live with myself if you'd died."

"But then what?" Robin stirred his soda but didn't take a drink.

"I stayed hidden away in a base that Commander Hinks set up for me." Starfire's eyes grew wide.

"Commander Hinks was aware of your undead state?"

"Well, we had to turn to someone, didn't we?" Taurus shrugged. "He was the final of three people who knew my secret. I was forced to stay in the base for two years, but the Commander took pity on me an' suggested that perhaps I'd be happier on Earth. He'd even hinted that you'd be here. Of course, I took the offer immediately. I'd found you about two months ago, but I had to make sure there was no danger in my visiting you. So I waited a while, and when I was certain I wouldn't put you at risk, I knocked on your door an' here we are."

"One thing I don't get…" Cyborg tapped his finger on the wooden table. "What's with the southern accent?" It seemed as though that was everyone's question, because all heads turned to face the brunette. No longer were the Titans distracted by their drinks.

"Oh…" Taurus flushed, embarrassed. "Well, when I first arrived, I found myself in Texas. In order to learn the local language, I had to kiss someone who knew English." Taurus shrugged. "I guess I picked a guy with a southern accent."

"Wait…in order to learn languages, Tamaranians _kiss _people?" Robin's mouth was now agape, and the three Titans on the opposite side of the table suddenly became very interested in their drinks and the pattern on the table, hiding smirks.

"Yep." Taurus smiled at Robin's expression. "It's one of our powers. We can absorb languages." The Teen Wonder couldn't hide the jealousy that crawled into his features. Now, despite the mask, his expression was completely visible.

"Robin…" Starfire turned to him and put a gentle hand on his cheek. "Tamaranian royalty are forced to learn languages by study. The Royal Council considers the acquisition of languages by that manner…" here the redhead paused and grinned at Taurus, "…immoral, inappropriate, and only for commoners."

"Damn right!" Taurus grinned recklessly. She was a wild one…

"This is why I do not speak the _slang_. We, as royalty, are only taught proper English. And as I am well aware that it concerns you, allow me to reassure the belief that you were, indeed, my first kiss." With this simple statement, the Tamaranian princess pressed her lips to the side of Robin's cheek that her fingertips weren't touching, and the Teen Wonder smiled softly.

"Right…"

"Your pizzas?" Vince had reappeared at the table, his arms layered with Italian goodness, not realizing that he had just barely halted a slew of comments from two snickering male Titans. "Let's see…large cheese for you two…" The waiter deposited the corresponding pizza in front of Raven and Beast Boy. "Large pepperoni with a side of mustard for you guys…" Robin and Starfire had broken apart and nodded at Vince gratefully. "And an extra large sausage, ham, pepperoni, and bacon pizza for you." The final plate was deposited before Cyborg.

"Dude…" Beast Boy eyed the pizza warily.

"Shut up man, it's my food." The cybernetic man grinned smugly.

"You sure you don't want anything?" Vince threw a casual glance at Taurus.

"I'm fine, thanks." The brunette smiled appreciatively.

"Friend, do you wish to try some mustard?" Starfire pushed the plate of yellow goop to her friend.

"Why not?" Taurus laughed, adventurous as always, and took a piece of the cheese pizza and dipped it in the mustard. "Not bad!" The Titans commenced in their eating; Cyborg with his very large and very meaty pizza, Raven and Beast Boy, the empath a vegetarian for quite a while now, enjoying their cheese, Starfire and Robin and the simple but classic pepperoni, albeit with mustard on the side, and Taurus taking a bit of each.

Life was good as a Titan.

* * *

The six strode along the streets of Jump City, making their way back to the docks to get home. Conversation was light, now that Taurus' past was cleared up, and each seemed to be enjoying the rather leisurely afternoon immensely.

"So, what're we doing for dinner tonight?" Cyborg asked, his hands held behind his head.

"Rae and I are going out tonight…" Beast Boy padded along beside his girlfriend, not exactly looking _happy_ that he had a date that night. No one seemed to notice.

"What about you two?" Raven shot a look at Robin and Starfire, bringing up the rear of their group.

"Nothing planned tonight." The leader of the Titans shrugged nonchalantly.

"What of Taurus, though?" Starfire smiled at her friend, but looked slightly concerned. "Where will she stay?"

"Can't she just stay with us?" Robin's masked eyes panned the reaction of his team.

"Uh…I don't know if that's such a great idea." Beast Boy looked hesitant.

"Don't you remember our last _guest_?" Raven's voice was dripping with disdain.

"But friends, she is _nothing_ like Scorpio, I assure you…" Starfire's voice was earnest, and the brunette who walked ahead of her turned around with questioning eyes.

"You mentioned Scorpio before, honey." Taurus's eyes were cold but concerned. "_What_ did he do?"

"Nothing!" Starfire smiled a little too widely. "He did nothing at all! There is nothing to be anxious about!" The other Titans exchanged odd glances, but let the behavior go. They had little doubt that the last thing Starfire would want to bring up was the fact that she'd gone out with Taurus' psychotic brother.

"…If you say so…" The brunette looked unconvinced, but shrugged it off. There was a story to be told, that was obvious enough. She wouldn't push for it's telling though. When Starfire was ready, she'd spill.

* * *

"And this will be your room!" The door at the end of the hall slid open, and Taurus stepped inside with Starfire close at hand.

"Wow…it's _nice_." The brunette's eyes panned the whole of the area. "Especially compared to the base the Commander had set me up with."

"It's yours as long as you want or need it." Robin and Cyborg trudged in behind the two girls. Raven and Beast Boy, the two visibly absent Titans, were off preparing for their date later that night.

"Ya'll are too kind. I'll take it if you'll have me." Taurus opened the closet door and sighed softly. "I don't have many possessions…in fact, I don't have any. All I've had for a while are the clothes on my back an' what room and board I could find."

"You are welcome here, friend. Remember this." The brunette smiled and embraced Starfire with a warm light in her eyes.

"Thanks Star."

"We'll leave you to get used to your surroundings." Robin took Starfire by the hand and gestured to Cyborg. "If you need anything, just call. One of us should answer. Maybe later we can run you through the training course and test your abilities." With a swift toss, Taurus suddenly found a round, yellow and black Titans communicator in her hands. As the three filed out of her room, the brunette turned away from the door and felt a tear slide down her face. It might not be permanent, but it seemed that for at least a short amount of time, she might have a home again.

* * *

Outside the door, Cyborg watched the newcomer pace the room, examining every detail. She was pretty, and there was no denying the fact that the half robot was infatuated with her. It wasn't love, not in the least, but it was an attraction that might lead to love. Cyborg, not one to beat around the bush like his friends, decided that he'd take the most direct approach and ask her out.

Later tonight.

Maybe.

His eyes followed Taurus as she reached a desk in the corner of the room and pulled open one of the drawers. There was a sharp intake of breath, and the girl pulled out a glittering silver dagger. Her eyes burned with hatred and recognition at the sight, and the half robot watched as she fumbled with the communicator she'd just been given.

"Starfire? Robin? Raven? Look, whoever the hell I'm contactin', please get down here-" Taurus suddenly stopped speaking and turned to faced the door with a surprised expression, dagger still in hand, where Cyborg stood looking rather embarrassed. Her voice had echoed through his arm, he being the one she'd accidentally contacted, making it quite obvious he'd been standing there for a while. "What're you…?"

"Uh…just wanted to make sure you were okay…" Cyborg laughed hesitantly, beads of sweat forming on his forehead.

"Right…well could you get Starfire down here?" Taurus' eyes were cold again, the dagger held steadily in her fist. "I wanna to know _exactly_ what happened when my brother was here."

* * *

Raven sat on her bed, flipping through the pages of a book entitled _Whispers_. The text was ancient and faded, but within these fading lines resided some of the empath's most prized poems and songs. Beast Boy had convinced her to recite a few tonight at the café, and Andromeda had even been kind enough to get her a spot last minute. Something wasn't right, though. With the arrival of Taurus and all the confusion, her senses were clouded, but one thing Raven was sure about was that something would happen tonight.

Something bad.

* * *

Dammit! Not as long as I thought it'd be. But a TINY bit longer than last time. The next chapter, however, I can GUARENTEE will be at least seven or eight pages. AT LEAST. Grr…my writing WILL get better. I promise. Right now, it's kinda everywhere and BLAH, but it will steadily improve! Well, hope you liked it for now!

Oh! And good job, **Starfire-is-not-a-wimp**! You're the only one who correctly guessed why Taurus had a southern accent. CLAP FOR HER, EVERYONE! Good work, go you! -tosses confetti and Riccola Lemon Mint throat drops-

Love,  
SushiChica

**Song of the Moment:** _Santa Monica _by Everclear.


	5. Emotional Tyrant

I return to you in the early mornings before Book Day starts at my school, hoping you will forgive me if I am absent for a little while. I just need to work out how things go in the library and whatnot, and then I will be updating as often as my schedule sees fit. That's the way the cookie crumbles!

o.o; my God, did I really just say that?

Disclaimer: -laughs hysterically- As IF! No Teen Titans for me! **Please Note: **This chapter marks the return of another ADRIANE NEVAREZ ORIGINAL! Clap for Adriane, my brilliant songwriting friend! Whoo! She wrote the song **Kleptomaniac**, which appears in this chapter. She also owns **To Whom It Concerns**, but only a little is used, so…yeah. **PLEASE REMEMBER TO READ AND REVIEW HER SONGS! THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT FOR HER. **Thanks all! Oh…and the two short poems are by me. One is bad on purpose, and one I actually think is relatively good. -grin-

Dedication: To anyone who can openly admit that they **are** stupid sometimes. Like ME! XD

* * *

"That bastard…that evil ass _bastard_!" Taurus sat on her new bed, eyes still on the shimmering silver dagger now in her lap, looking ready to stab something with it. Starfire sat across the mattress, twirling a lock of red hair around her finger idly. "I should've known Scorpio would go for you…and usin' his mind control on ya like that…" The brunette shook her head, annoyed with herself for letting such an atrocity come upon her friend. 

"It is the past, Taurus. And you were in hiding, so how could you have prevented it?" Starfire smiled kindly. She'd rushed to her friend's room as soon as Cyborg had called for her, and now it was just the two of them discussing Scorpio…among other events. "Besides, perhaps it is _good_ that you did not prevent his courtship of me! After all, even Robin agrees that he was very influential in our relationship."

"Yeah, I guess…" Taurus still wasn't quite as forgiving of herself, but she could do more personal chastising later. "So, who's the Robin guy?"

"Oh…" Starfire flushed, but a grin escaped her. "I have told you, he is the one who is courting me! He is my _boyfriend_."

"Well, that's a tad obvious." The brunette arched her head back, positioning her hands behind her so as to balance out her weight as she stretched. "But I'm questioning if he's good enough for ya."

"Taurus…"

"Well you went with Scorpio, for X'hal's sake! I have a right to question your judgment!"

"He was controlling my mind, friend! Of _course_ my senses were obscured!" The two friends shot daggers at each other for all of five seconds before bursting into laughter.

"Alright, alright, I'll leave it alone for now, but if he does anythin' I deem inappropriate…" Taurus made an imaginary gun out of her fingers and fired it.

"I do not remember you ever being so protective when it came to those I courted!" Starfire smiled softly. "What is it that has caused such? If I recall correctly, you were often encouraging me to have a boyfriend."

"Yeah, well…" Taurus shrugged. "Things change."

"So it seems, though I doubt there is much you will need to worry about with Robin. Even Aquarius approves."

"You've seen Aqua?" The brunette now sat upright, her eyes filled with curiosity.

"Indeed! She was the Tamaranian police officer who came to collect Scorpio." Starfire flipped a lock of hair over her shoulder.

"…She did it." Taurus' expression sparkled with happiness. "She really did it!"

"She has even received an offer of recruitment from the Darkstars." Starfire laughed as her friend leaped from the bed and let out a cry of delight.

"She always wanted to be one of them! That's great!" Taurus flopped back onto the mattress with a contented sigh. "Everythin's turned out so great for everyone…"

"But what of yourself?" Starfire watched her friend settle back into a comfortable position against the headboard. "You have not had joy in your life for quite some time, as it seems."

"I get the feelin' that things might just be turnin' around." Taurus threw a pillow to her friend with a smirk. "After all, I'm with you again, ain't I? Maybe it's just me, but I'd consider that a damn good start to bein' joyful."

* * *

Beast Boy sat at the counter of the Titans kitchen, doing something that he wasn't established to be very good at, but he'd been actively participating in more often as of late. 

Beast Boy was thinking. In fact, the Changeling was so deep in thought that he barely heard another Titan seat himself beside his green form and ask a question.

"Hm…what?" Beast Boy looked up, and was surprised to see Robin staring at him expectantly.

"I said, _what are you doing_?"

"What does it _look _like I'm doing?" The Changeling snapped, annoyed.

"Easy!" The Teen Wonder held up his hands in the universal sign for peace. "I was just asking…"

"…Sorry, dude." There was a short pause before Beast Boy turned to his leader with an oddly contemplative look on his face. "Look, Robin, you're a dude of action. If you had a _really_ big decision to make between two things, and you were running out of time to make your choice between one of those acts, what would you do?"

"Depends on what kind of actions we're talking about." Robin shrugged.

"Any kind!" Beast Boy exclaimed, a little too quickly to be considered easy-going.

"O…_kay_…" the Teen Wonder tapped a green gloved finger on the counter. "I'd choose whichever act I wouldn't regret choosing."

"What if you might regret either one?"

"Then I wouldn't know what to tell you." Robin quirked an inquiring eyebrow. "Why all the questions?"

"…No reason." Beast Boy slid off the chair quickly and slunk from the room. "I've got a date to go on. I'll see you later, Rob."

"…Well _that _wasn't weird…" Robin shook his head and went to retrieve a glass of water.

* * *

Since being caught watching Taurus from the door of her room, Cyborg had retreated to the garage to work on his baby. While the alien girl hadn't been _angry_ at him, she did look a little weirded out by the fact that he'd been studying her. 

_And why shouldn't she?_ The half robot asked himself, checking the spark plugs with practiced precision. _It looked like I was stalking her or something…_

Cyborg wasn't about to give up yet, though. Perhaps if he caught her alone he could coyly invite her to a movie or something. Yeah, that's what he'd do.

If he ever worked up the nerve to leave the garage. Then again, he _was _feeling rather thirsty. Perhaps some water or a soda would do him good. Throwing the oil-stained towel that hung over his shoulder over a wooden bench to the left, the half robot exited the garage, bound and determined to get some kind of liquid into his system.

* * *

"Honey, I'm parched. I need somethin' to drink." Taurus decided, standing up and returning the dagger to the drawer in the desk beside her bed. 

"Allow me to accompany you!" Starfire rose as well, but her friend shook her off.

"Don't you go worryin' 'bout me. I get enough about that from the good doctor of Tamaran. You go enjoy yourself with your bird friend."

"Raven?"

"Robin."

"Oh! I understand." Starfire flushed again, but nodded her head in comprehension. "Very well, I will seek him out. Enjoy your beverage!" The two girls parted with smiles on their faces, both in search of something, or someone, that would satisfy them.

* * *

"Rave! Beast Boy! Good timing!" Andromeda, the quirky waitress with short black hair streaked red and an attitude to match, greeted the couple with a smile as they breezed through the doors of the dimly-lit café. "Rave, you still up for performing tonight?" 

"…I think so." The empath went over the lines and lyrics in her head, running through what she'd just reread before she left, just in case.

"Good, cause you're up next." Andromeda gestured for the pair to follow her. They were lead to a set of plush seats near the front, near the stage. There were people scattered here and there, all looking quite horror stricken at the present performer, and for good reason.

"_I'm stuck in my delusions, and what is it that I see?  
__A very large and fat king, looking right at me!  
__Dressed in pony blossoms and many zebra stripes too,  
__I'm telling the full truth when I say his face was very blue!_"

"OKAY!" Andromeda rushed up to the stage and pushed aside the man who had been reciting quite forcefully, almost sending him flying off the side steps. "Next performance should be quite a spectacle! I don't even have to introduce her, because I'm sure you all know _Raven of the Teen Titans!_" The waitress gestured for Raven to take the stage. The empath was hesitant as she rose, until she felt a hand on the small of her back.

"Go!" Beast Boy whispered, smiling softly at her. "Show the world your talent." Feeling a rush of confidence surge through her, Raven held her head high and fazed herself onto the stage. The room hushed to a dead silence, as though the audience were waiting to see if she would triumph grandly as a true Titan should, or fall flat on her face in the harsh claws of failure.

"I'd like to start with a poem…" Raven's violet eyes panned the sparsely room, wondering if they would see how nervous she was. "…which I've chosen to remain untitled." With a deep breath, the empath began to recite from memory, closing her eyes to block out the rest of the world as she spoke.

"_And he's totally oblivious  
__To what's completely obvious  
__And as he talks, he holds my gaze  
__Laughing off what people say  
__And I'm too scared to speak the words  
__Whatever they may be  
__But for some strange reason  
__I think he sees through me._"

There was a pause, and what seemed like a million questions flooded Raven's mind in that small period of quiet. Had it been bad? Too short? Too _long_? Uncreative? Had it been, Azar forbid, too awful for the audience to even comprehend?

Suddenly, a rush of sound drowned out the empath's thoughts, and she was instantaneously aware of the fact that the noise she heard was _clapping. _Raven's eyes popped open, and with a soaring feeling like a dove swooping through her being, she realized that the crowd _approved_. The approved of _her_. With an explosion of adrenaline flowing through her every pore, the empath took the microphone in her hands and spoke again. "My next piece is a song entitled _To Whom It Concerns…_"

* * *

"Hey man." Cyborg strode into the kitchen and nearly wrenched the door of the refrigerator off in search of his soda. 

"Feeling a bit tense, by any chance?" Robin nodded to the dent that the half robot had left in the handle of the kitchen appliance.

"Uh…yeah…" the cybernetic laughed sheepishly and patted the refrigerator door softly. "Sorry 'bout that…"

"What's up with you?" The Teen Wonder shook his head and drained his glass. "Everyone's acting weird tonight. First Beast Boy, now you."

"Since when has Beast Boy ever _not _been weird?" Cyborg shrank at Robin's sharp glance.

"That's not what I meant."

"Yeah, yeah, I know." The half metal man sighed, deciding he might as well ask. "Do you think I'd have a chance if I asked Taurus out?"

"Taurus?" Robin eyed Cyborg warily, wondering when exactly he'd become the team therapist. "You just met her."

"I know, but…"

"…but after you're whole _totally ghetto_ experience, she seems better than nothing?" Cyborg rolled his eyes.

"Remind you to never ask you anything again. You have _no_ sympathy whatsoever."

The clicking of high healed brown boots on the floor announced Taurus' entrance of the kitchen to find Cyborg and Robin, who'd abruptly ended their previous conversation.

"Oh! Well, look like I wasn't the only one who was thirsty, then…" she smiled cheerfully and searched the cabinets until she found the ones containing glasses, then filled her cup to the brim with clear, cool water. "By the way…" the brunette turned to Robin with a slight smirk on her face. "Star's lookin' for ya." The leader of the Titans tried not to look pleased but failed miserably.

"Thanks, Taurus. I should probably track her down…" He rose from his seat, leaving his now empty glass on the counter for someone else to clean up.

"Oh, Robin?" The Teen Wonder turned around at Taurus' voice.

"Yeah?" She tilted her head at him, as though considering something particularly trivial.

"…Thanks for lettin' me live hear. It's mighty sweet of y'all." Robin nodded, well aware that the alien girl had something else to say. "But even so, if you do _anythin'_ to Star, anythin' hurtful or mean or rude or stupid? I _swear_ I'll blow you into more bits than anyone could put a number on. Got it?" Taurus smiled pleasantly, but was dead serious in her claims.

"…Yeah…" With an awkward laugh that sounded more like a choking noise, the Teen Wonder wandered off, leaving only Taurus and Cyborg in the kitchen.

Alone.

* * *

"_The act, you've taken  
__The wrath, you've earned  
__To the dead and the living  
__To whom it may concern…_" 

Raven ended her song with an edgy note, and the crowd roared in approval. Every clap brought hope and joy to the empath's heart, and though she didn't exactly lavish in the attention she was receiving, she had to admit it was nice to be appreciated as something other than '_that hot Gothic chick_'. Now, at least she might be known as '_that hot Gothic chick with a talent for writing songs and singing them_.'

Well, it was a start.

"And for my final act, as I've probably taken up too much of your time already…" The audience let out a soft groan at the thought of loosing the best open mic performer of the night, if not the year, and Raven felt her heart flutter. "For my final act, I'll be doing another song, called _Kleptomaniac._" The crowd fell silent, eager to hear these last, magical lyrics. Her voice was enthralling, in a haunting way, perfect to match the words she had written and now sang. Hers was the type of voice that could give you nightmares if you listened to it just before going to bed, but was darkly beautiful in the same respect.

"_Talks to herself, they say she's insane  
__That's why she's all alone to feel the pain  
__Playing mind games without a mind  
__Outsider to all man kind_

_You see her sitting all alone  
__Talking on the telephone  
__But non one's on the other side  
__Standing behind enemy lines _

_She's slipping  
__She's falling  
__But no one was calling  
__Her back, so no one saw the signs_

_And no one ever noticed  
__Telepathic  
__Her life's so tragic  
__Kleptomaniac_

_The warning's flashing  
__Tearing, crashing  
__The more you take  
__The more you lack_

_She's slipping  
__She's falling  
__But no one was calling  
__Her back, so no one saw the signs  
__  
And no one ever noticed  
__Telepathic  
__Her life's so tragic  
__Kleptomaniac  
__  
Slipping  
__Falling  
__Screaming  
__Crawling  
__With nobody calling  
__Just another kleptomaniac…_"

The last sweet note escaped from Raven's lips, and the audience burst into loud and ringing cheers. The empath took a small bow, and found that Andromeda had joined her on the stage.

"An excellent job, done by the mysteriously fabulous Raven!" The waitress announced, grinning at her friend with excitement. "_You did great!_" Andromeda whispered, giving Raven a quick hug around the shoulder.

"_It wasn't _that _good_…" the empath hissed back, smiling softly at the still applauding crowd.

"_Wasn't that good? Are you _kidding _me Rave?_" Andromeda gestured to the audience, still speaking in a hushed tone so as not to be picked up by the microphone. _"We haven't been this full in _months! _People heard you from the _streets_ and came in side to check you out!_ _They didn't even know you were a Titan until they saw you!_" Raven's eyes swept the undoubtedly more packed room and realized that her friend was right. There _were _a lot of people out there, cheering her on. She could hardly believe it.

But then her eyes fell on Beast Boy, and although he was standing and applauding with the rest of them, his eyes…there was something about his eyes that didn't seem right. There was an emotion in there that didn't seem to fit with the Beast Boy she knew, an emotion that seemed completely out of place and especially at a time like this.

Raven could've sworn she saw sorrow.

* * *

Robin caught up with Starfire just outside his room. 

"Hey." He was smiling slightly, his haira bitmussed from his search for her.

"Hello to you as well." Starfire pecked him on the cheek, but Robin didn't look quite satisfied with that. Instead, he put a hand behind her head and drew the redhead into him, and into a heated kiss.

"I think it'd be pointless to ask how you are, Princess…" Robin laughed as he drew away from his girlfriend, noting the bright, bubbly look in her eyes.

"I am simply _wonderous_!" Starfire did indeed seem positively ecstatic. "Taurus is here, alive and well, Raven and Beast Boy are on what I am sure to be a splendid date, and you…you…" The alien girl lost her train of thought when she realized how close they were once again.

"And I…? Go on, I want to hear what you were going to say." Robin kissed Starfire atop her nose and took her hands in his.

"And you…" the Tamaranian princess suddenly let a few melodious gales escape her. "And _we_ should perhaps continue this glorious conversation on the roof."

"I can concede to that." And the pair went off to continue their glorious conversation on the roof.

* * *

"Beast Boy, something's wrong with you. I've been able to tell for a while now, and it's bothering me. What's going on?" Raven and Beast Boy had exited the café from the back door, for fear of being swamped by adoring fans. They now strode through Jump City's central park, their path lit only by the lamps that had been haphazardly spewed here and there. 

"Look, Rae, I've been thinking, and well, about us, and…" Beast Boy hesitated when Raven shot an anxious glance at him.

"Where are you going with this?"

"Raven, I think…you can handle hearing this…"

"Hearing what?" Now the empath seemed panicked. "What are you saying?"

"I think it'd be best if we…stopped dating."

"Wait…you're breaking up with me?" Raven stopped moving completely, as though rooted to the ground. The Changeling remained slightly behind her.

"Um…kind of…" Beast Boy adverted his eyes from her face, resisting the urge to sweep the empath into his arms and tell her he'd love her forever and of course he wasn't breaking up with her. No, he couldn't let her keep hurting herself.

"You're breaking up with me." Raven repeated, still frozen on the spot. The words flowed in her head like liquid ice, but they weren't registering in her brain. She'd known something bad was going to happen tonight, but this? "I…I don't understand."

"I can't really explain it, Rae."

"I don't understand," she said again. The look in her violet eyes was difficult to decipher. Somewhere inside those deep amethyst pools swam hurt, doubt, and confusion.

"Well…um…" With apparent difficulty, Beast Boy spat out the best lie he could think of, which wasn't a very good one at all. "I just don't think I really love you." Raven's eyes became stone cold.

"Really?" The Changeling extended a hand to her from behind, but she pushed it away without even sparing him a glance. "I can't believe this is happening. I can't believe you'd drop a bombshell on me like this."

"I'm sorry, Rae! Really, I am. I just think it's better for both of us." Raven spun to face Beast Boy, her violet eyes flashing angrily. Too many years of withholding her feelings prevented the ache in her heart to surface. Instead, it came out as fury.

"I always knew you were juvenile. I always knew you were thoughtless. I always knew you could be an impossible blockhead sometimes. But I never thought you were _mean_." The word slipped from the empath's lips like a vile poison, silencing them both for a mere moment. Finally, Raven spoke again, using three simple words that had the terrifying yet awe inspiring effect of an avalanche. "…I hate you." Beast Boy winced.

_That makes two of us…

* * *

_

Cyborg sipped from his can of soda, well aware of Taurus' presence yet not really sure what he was supposed to say. This was his chance, he was alone with the pretty Tamaranian newcomer. Robin and Starfire had undoubtedly gone off to the roof to have another of their everlasting conversations as they occasionally did, and would probably fall asleep up there knowing them, giving the half robot a perfect window of opportunity. So how did Cyborg choose to open?

"You know, it's occurred to me that we're the only single people in this whole tower…" The half robot silently cursed himself. Sure, it was a perfect window of opportunity, but he'd blown it with such a directly terse line that failure was almost guaranteed.

"That's nice." Taurus set her glass of water onto the counter beside her, disinterested. "What's you're point?"

"Well, since you don't have a boyfriend and I don't have a girlfriend, maybe we could…" Cyborg poked his hands together, crudely symbolizing a union.

"I kissed a southern guy, not a deaf guy." Taurus rolled her eyes. "I don't speak sign language, so what're y'all sayin'?"

"That maybe we could…get together…or something…"

"Oh I see." Taurus brightened with comprehension. "So you're suggestin' that, because we're the only two people left to hook up, we should just get down to business and become a couple?" The brunette quirked an inquiring eyebrow and Cyborg couldn't suppress a lopsided grin.

"Well don't you have a way with words."

"I try." Taurus' face was unreadable.

"Well I don't know if I'd have used those exact terms, but that _is_ what I was gettin' at."

"So, what's the deal here? Are we just supposed to start makin' out, right here in the kitchen?" Taurus had a sly smile on her face as she neared him, almost backing the half robot into the counter that lay behind, where her glass of water sat untouched.

"Um…sure…why not?" Cyborg could barely believe his luck, and this girl wasn't even totally ghetto!

"Well, why don't you show me what you got then, if ya'll are so eager…" Taurus placed four tapered on the half robot's cheek.

"Serious?"

"Do I look like I'm kiddin'?" Her voice had a sultry, almost seductive edge to it.

"Well alright then, little lady…" Cyborg smiled, his desperation for a girlfriend getting the better of him. She was mere inches away...her hand was weaving behind his back…just a bit more and-

_Splash._

"Aww, man!" Cyborg jumped back, wide eyed, wet, and shocked at the snickering brunette alien girl before him, an empty glass in her hand. She'd poured every last drop of her water over his head.

"Do ya'll really think I'm that easy? Now, I like you, but go get a mail order bride if ya wanna go that fast with someone ya barely know just for the hell of it." With an annoyed sniff, Taurus exited the kitchen.

Cyborg hung his head in shame, water still sliding from his head and shoulders. .

* * *

"Rae, c'mon. Let's get home." Beast Boy beckoned to her, but she remained in the same place. 

"Just…go away."

"You're mad. I understand." The Changeling bit his lip, wondering if he was really doing the right thing.

"I'm not _mad_!" Raven snapped, now practically yelling. "I'm not mad _at all_! Just go away and _leave me alone!_" Beast Boy bowed his head and nodded, deciding to abide by the empath's wishes. He turned to leave.

"It's okay, Rae. You have a right to be mad."

"_And another thing- I don't need your stupid permission to be mad, you emotional tyrant! I can be mad whenever the hell I want to be! However, I'm not mad! I'm not mad at all, you jerk!_" Tears were now spilling from Raven's eyes, and she sunk to her knees as she watched Beast Boy's retreating form become a falcon and take to the sky. "…I'm just hurt."

* * *

THE **ANGST**! -falls to the floor- I feel so bad for doing this to Raven, but we wouldn't have any good Rae/BB drama to keep us busy if I didn't let this happen, so…yeah. _Told you_ it'd be a longer chapter! And hopefully better! I actually like the way I ended it though. Actually, I find that I liked this chapter. It was relatively easy to write, which is always nice. A sad chapter, but still… 

UGH! Anyone wanna hear about the last Thursday night that I had? (Well, Rose-Chica already has…) No? TOO BAD. Listen, and my stupidity shall be revealed! WHOO!

See, I took a nap from like…3 pm to 6 pm because I was flipping exhausted. And then I had very little dinner (I wasn't hungry at the time) and then drank some CAFFINATED TEA at 9 pm. So, my mom sics me to bed around 10:30, but thing is I can't go to sleep. The combination of the caffeinated beverage and the three hour nap I had earlier WOULD NOT LET ME REST. So I was up till 3:30 AM reading MANGA. Xx Not that manga's a bad thing. It's a very good thing. But it was flipping 3 AM! Oh! Then when I tried going to sleep after that, I discovered that I was very hungry. So, I go downstairs and stuff my face with bread and string cheese. And do you know what BRILLIANT thoughts occur to me as I'm doing this?

Mozzarella sticks are just breaded, deep fried string cheese.

Oh, the genius of it all.

In the immortal words of Rose (Jackalobe): "Yes, Mozzarella sticks are pieces of string cheese deep fried and smothered in bread crumbs, and dipped in grease.

**ISN'T AMERICA GREAT**?"

XD Go Rose!

But then, I guess it wasn't as bad as the time my friend and I were up really late, and she asked me what movie we would be watching the following afternoon and I responded with, and I quote, "_No_, I _don't_ know why the mountains turn green in the fall, _okay_?"

Don't ask how I draw these fascinating conclusions. I even stump myself.

In any case, I finally got to bed at 4:30 AM and woke up at 9…and you know the really sad thing?

This isn't the first time I've done this. I just DON'T learn from my mistakes.

Stupid me. ENGROSS YOURSELF IN MY STUPIDITY AND NERDINESS! WHOO!

…I'm so high right now…

**Oh, a note to ummmm:** While I **realize** Texans don't say 'hell' and 'damn right' all the time (hell, Californians are the ones who say it a ton...) and don't ride to school on horses (...who does? Well...maybe Amish people, but how did horses even enter the conversation...?), This is all part of her **character**. The 'hell' and the 'damn right' is part of Taurus, not part of the accent. She said these things when she still spoke Tamaranian. Her personality hasn't changed at **all** since kissing the guy. She says all the things she used to, only in English, and with an accent. Trust me, I'm not messing with your state. My father LIVES in your state, so I WOULDN'T mess with it. And sorry for the misspellings of y'all, I'll try to go back and fix them...and don't worry, I don't take it as a flame. -smile-

**Another note to mysticmagicmage: **Never redid the first chapter...Saturday morning was the first time I put it up and the last time I put it up.

**Final note to** **xox.Annie Potter.xox:** I don't count forced kisses. -smile- She never actually kissed Scorpio when they were together on Tamaran, and as forced kisses don't count to me...yeah. Robin is her first kiss in my book. YAY!

For what it's worth I hopeeveryone enjoyed the chapter!

Love,  
SushiChica

**Song of the Moment: **_Only Happy When It Rains _by Garbage

…no wonder this turned out angsty.

**:-:PLEASE DON'T FORGET TO INCLUDE YOUR THOUGHTS AND OPINIONS ON ADRIANE'S SONG _Kleptomaniac _IN YOUR REVIEW! THANKS:-:**


	6. Unfertilized Chicken Embryos

**33**(Days that it's been since I last updated)  
**25** (Number of times I dissed Kang during our Starbucks meeting…probably more)  
**18 **(Bottles of Snapple Peach Iced Tea downed while writing this chapter)  
**15** (New friends I've made at my AWESOME new school)  
**12** (Amount of change I have in my pocket at the moment)  
**10 **(Fights I've picked with idiots who think they know everything)  
**7 **(Seconds it took for me to realize that I'm seriously addicted to arguing)  
**5** (Hours of homework I have per night, oftentimes more)  
**2 **(People to a lab station in my physics class)  
**0** (Ounces of sanity I have left…then again, I'm an optimist…)

Dedication: To **Rose** and **Queenie**, who, as of last week, I'VE TALKED TO ON THE PHONE! I love you guys. I don't know where I'd be without you…-shudder- It's a scary thought. Anyways, YAY QUEENIE AND ROSE!

Disclaimer: _Sushi stole Teen Titans from DC and CN. **Who me?** Yes you! **Couldn't be!** Then who?_

…alright it was me…

(…has anyone ever noticed that I ALWAYS mix up the order of the dedication and the disclaimer? Like, sometimes it'll be one way, and sometimes it'll be another…)

* * *

11:35 PM. 

Andromeda, night waitress and entertainment coordinator of Xandu Café, dropped herself into one of several large, plush armchairs that took up most of the main room. True, the café usually stayed open until midnight, but once Raven had left, so had the crowd. Figuring it'd be pointless to stay open if no one was there, Andromeda had opted to close early.

"Night Andy!" The girl winced at the nickname but smiled at the friendly teen male who'd been addressing her, a co-worker and superb latte maker.

"Night Stein…" Andromeda waved lazily, referring to him by last name. The only thing left to do would be lock the front door, but the night waitress didn't exactly feel like moving just yet. During the time that Raven had been performing, the crowd had swelled and become much more demanding than usual. Andromeda loved her job, but for the first time in a while she was _glad_ they'd closed up early.

The front door flew open with a bang, sending the exhausted night waitress two feet in the air from the initial shock, then tumbling to the floor with a soft thump. Luckily, the carpet beneath had cushioned her fall.

"Look, I'm sorry…" Andromeda called to whoever had entered the café as she began to rise, "…but we closed early and I'm not sure there's much we can offer you-" The waitress had pulled herself to full height but the familiar face and the state she was in stopped her cold.

"…R…Rave?" Coming to her senses, Andromeda stumbled over assorted tables and chairs to reach the empathic Titan, closing the door behind them. "Rave…what's wrong? You look like hell, no pun intended and…no offense."

"None taken…" Raven's eyes were bloodshot from crying more at one time than she had collectively in her entire life. "I feel like hell."

"Oh…oh God…sit down, I'll brew you some tea." Andromeda led Raven to the nearest chair, then rushed to the kitchen to prepare a pot of her friend's preferred beverage. The task was not a time consuming one, and soon the two girls sat facing one another, sipping tea; one calming herself down enough to speak coherent sentences and the other waiting patiently for some sort of explanation.

"I…" Raven choked up once more and took in another mouthful of tea.

"Rave…did you get raped?" A sound that emitted from Raven's throat that somewhat resemble a strangled laugh told Andromeda otherwise. "Okay then…" Suddenly, the lack of a certain green male caught the waitress' attention. "Did...did Beast Boy get killed? Did someone murder Beast Boy on your way home?" Raven whimpered slightly at mention of her fellow Titan, but shook her head at Andromeda's guess. "Well then what the hell would-" A sharp intake of breath sliced the still café air. "He…he didn't…"

Raven nodded miserably.

"Oh...God, Rave…"Andromeda bit her lip, trying to look sympathetic. Inside, though, objection was quelling.

"You think it's stupid, don't you?" Raven had found the voice to speak, though thin ribbons of tears still streaked down her face. "You think that it's not like me to go crying over some guy."

"…Alright, so I can't exactly deny the fact that I find it a bit irksome. I mean, you're _Raven_ for God's sake. Bawling over a breakup isn't exactly like you." Andromeda winced, realizing how harsh her words had come out. Raven, however, seemed unfazed by them.

"That's just it. _I still love him_ Andromeda. And if I continue to live with the knowledge that he no longer loves me as he claimed he didn't, my world will fall to pieces."

"Um…right…"

"You're not really getting this, are you?"

"You lost me around four words in." Raven almost snorted.

"Psychology major my ass…"

* * *

Beast Boy landed on the roof with a soft _whump_, trying not to make too much noise. To his left, he saw Starfire and Robin, both sound asleep. The Tamaranian princess had laid her head on his chest and the Teen Wonder's arm encircled her waist. It looked as though they'd spent the night talking _again._ It wasn't an unusual occurrence; quite the opposite in fact. They'd spend hours on end discussing more topics than the green Titan cared to keep track of, and there was little to no doubt in anyone's mind that the two were practically soul mates. 

The Changeling slipped through the door that lead to the interior of Titans Tower so as not to disturb the happy couple, one question still burning in his mind.

Had he really done the right thing tonight?

There'd been something in her eyes that made Beast Boy question his actions. It wasn't the sorrow; he knew she'd be sad. It wasn't the anger, as he'd been expecting that as well. But then he'd seen it; the glimmer of fear in her deep violet eyes that sent chills down the Changeling's spine. Something he'd said instilled fear in Raven heart, and that was even worse than her sadness or her hate.

Fear of what, though? Beast Boy forced himself to ponder the question. Fear of rejection? Fear of aloneness? Or was it fear of…

* * *

"…Chaos?" Andromeda's eyes were as wide as dinner plates. "You're afraid of the chaos you might cause?" 

"Exactly." Raven rubbed at her throbbing temples, draining her fifth cup of tea. At this rate, she'd be up all night simply from the caffeine intake. "Beast Boy's love made me whole. Without it, and aware of my loss, I'll be thrown off balance again." The waitress let out a low whistle.

"Geez, Rave. You never have little problems do you? Only crazy, world ending ones from what I can tell."

"That about covers it." The empath actually attempted a smirk, in spite of the shrinking feeling she felt inside.

"Look, I might not be such a big help with this whole thing. Super powers and the like aren't really my level of understanding. That's one of the things they _don't_ cover in my psych class." Andromeda stood and Raven followed her lead. "The only advice I could possibly offer is to go home and get some rest. Maybe try asking Starfire _her_ take on all of this."

"You're right." The empath shook her head and made way for the door. "Sorry to dump all that on you."

"Not a problem. What're friends for?" Andromeda smiled softly.

"…Thank you for listening." With a faint black glow and the tinkling of broken glass, Raven faded from the area, leaving a shattered mug in her wake.

* * *

_Immeasurable pain shot through her entire body. Every nerve felt as though it were on fire, stinging without the slightest trace of relief. Cruel laughs surrounded her as they continued their torture. She screamed, tears reluctantly sliding down her face. They continued their agonizing torment, but kept her just barely alive for their own amusement. She was their plaything; just another Tamaranian warrior to have fun with in their off hours. She, like the rest of them, would give up no valuable information, but they enjoyed hearing her angst-ridden screams. She could think of nothing worse than the position she was in now._

"_Young warrior, take a look at the face of your betrayer."_

_Her heart nearly stopped beating at the sight. There, watching them torture her with nervous eyes and a lack of complaint, was-_

Taurus tumbled out of bed and landed face first on the floor with a grunt.

"…Ow…" Slowly, the brunette untangled herself from the sheets that had come down with her and rose to full height, her forehead throbbing and her body tingling. How many times had she tried to forget, only to be reminded by her dreams? She'd been able to feel the slicing pain, like a thousand flaming knives being thrust straight through snow. "Lovely way to start the mornin'…" Yawning and attempting to repress the shiver that reluctantly ran up her spine at the thought of _them_, Taurus pushed back an unruly lock of brown hair and sniffed. The scent of burnt bacon laced the air, and the Tamaranian girl welcomed it with a smile.

It was, after all, better than the sickening smell of rotting flesh that had become so familiar to her when prisoner at the Citadel.

With an indecisive shrug at her own reflection in the full length mirror in the corner of the room, Taurus headed off to the bathrooms to take what she hoped would be a refreshing shower.

* * *

War had erupted in the kitchen. 

As usual.

"Get your tofu-covered hands _off of me!_" Cyborg attempted to throw Beast Boy off of his back but failed miserably. He may have been a scrawny shrimp, but the Changeling had a death grip from hell.

"Not until you promise you'll cook it for breakfast!"

"I already _made_ the damn eggs and bacon!"

"And _burned_ them!"

"Why would you even _care?_" Beast Boy finally toppled off the speaking cybernetic with a yelp of protest. "You don't eat them anyways!"

"Dude! You not only killed living animals to eat them, but you_ burned_ them in the process of cooking! That's like…double the torture!"

"…You keep telling yourself that." Cyborg rolled his eyes and slid the burnt bacon onto a waiting paper plate. "Besides, they were already _dead_ when we got 'em. What's the point of tryin' to save them?"

"BOYCOTT!" Beast Boy proclaimed, waving his hand in the air as he rose. "If we can get enough people to boycott the purchase of dead animals, maybe they'll stop selling them!"

"I highly doubt that." Robin entered the kitchen, rubbing his back. Starfire trailed close behind, looking bright and cheerful as always.

"Good morning, friends!" The Tamaranian girl flipped a lengthy lock of hair over her shoulder. "You are partaking in the morning ritual of argumentation prior to the breakfast?"

"…Yeah…"

"Has Taurus awoken yet?" Starfire didn't notice Cyborg suddenly went very red and seemed rather squeamish at mention of the brunette Tamaranian. The green Titan with tofu in his hand and fire in his eyes shiftily shook his head.

"AND HEY, DO YOU EVEN KNOW WHAT EGGS ARE?" Beast Boy was still hot on his friend's case.

"Duh. The things that chickens lay." Cyborg looked at the Changeling oddly, glad to change the subject.

"Well yeah, but think about it this way:" Beast Boy grinned evilly. "You're about to eat unfertilized chicken embryos."

The room went dead silent as each present Titan attempted to comprehend this lovely new piece of information.

"…I'm not havin' eggs…" Cyborg hastily dumped the plate he'd just made.

"Agreed…" Robin laughed. "But I will have some bacon." The Teen Wonder took four pieces of burnt bacon from the heaping pile on the plate beside the stove, handing two to Starfire, who accepted the food with a grateful smile, and keeping two for himself.

"I'd like to hear you say something bad about my bacon, veggie boy." Cyborg looked at his burnt creations proudly, sticking one in his mouth.

"Kay, fine. Aside from the fact that they're like…_totally _scorched, you probably have the right to know that you're digesting pig butt."

Simultaneous spluttering sounds of three people spitting the bacon they'd previously been chewing onto the floor filled the kitchen.

Beast Boy grinned at his small victory, though it was nothing compared to stabbing pain in his heart at the loss of Raven.

* * *

Taurus stepped out of the shower and wrapped a towel around her body. Starfire and Raven had kindly provided her with some unused undergarments to wear for the time being, but as far as outerwear went, the brunette Tamaranian had not but the outfit she'd arrived in. Taurus examined herself in the large and aggravatingly cloudy mirror. She'd pulled her hair back into a bun at the back of her head, allowing a few wavy strands to fly free at front. With a soft sigh, she decided she'd leave it like that. It had been at least forty-five minutes since she'd had the dream, and she could still practically smell the blood stained walls of her tiny cell. Taurus had clothed herself now, and smirked slightly as she set her double platinum lasers back into their holsters. It was almost amusing how paranoid she was now; she even took her guns into the bathroom with her. 

The pretty Tamaranian's suddenly looked up from the tying of her knee-high brown lace-up boots. Was that…crying she heard? Taurus remained completely still. The noise had stopped. With a shrug, the brunette decided it was nothing and continued to assemble her footwear.

* * *

The four Titans in the kitchen had finally settled on pancakes as an appropriate breakfast, as Beast Boy could find nothing incriminating to say about them, except perhaps that the milk used was liquid from cow udders. 

Nobody else really seemed to care all that much. The Changeling couldn't help but think of the type of sarcastic remark that Raven would make at his milk announcement.

"_Brilliant, Einstein. And here we all thought it came from _frog_ udders."_

"Hey, man…you there?" Cyborg waved a hand in front of his friend's face, attempting to attract his attention.

"Yeah! Yeah, what?"

"I just asked if you could pass the butter." Robin looked slightly concerned. "You okay?"

"I'm…fine…" Beast Boy hastily passed over the butter, attempting to shake Raven's image from his mind. It simply wouldn't leave him alone.

"I am finished with my breakfast, friends. I believe I shall go check on Taurus and Raven, to be sure that they are well." Starfire smiled and rose, responsibly collecting her plate as she did.

"Wait…" Robin stood as well, following her into the kitchen as the other two male Titans continued to eat. He trailed his girlfriend into the kitchen, where she'd already begun to wash her dish.

"Do you wish me to cleanse your plate for you?" Starfire turned to Robin with a questioning look on her face.

"Leave the plate." The Teen Wonder dumped it in the sink without a second thought, then wrapped his arms around Starfire from behind in a gentle embrace. His lips brushed her neck, and she laughed softly, turning to face him.

"Please, I will return to you soon. I simply wish to check on Raven and Taurus." Robin grumbled almost inaudibly, a smirk on his face, and released her.

"Take as long as you need…not that I'm your time keeper or anything." Starfire smiled brilliantly and kissed him on the cheek.

"Very well." The Tamaranian girl vacated the kitchen and exited the main room of Titans Tower through one of the southern hallways.

"Cute." Cyborg grinned mischievously at his leader. "Just be aware that if I ever catch you to making out, I'll have my video camera out in seconds."

"Thanks for the warning." Robin laughed and took his seat at the table once again.

"Yo, what is _with_ you B? Rob and Star were all over each other, and you have nothing to say about it?" Cyborg swung his head around to face Beast Boy, whose eyes seemed slightly unfocused.

"Wait…what?" The Changeling shook his head to clear his mind. "What happened?"

"…Man, what went down last night that's made you like this? You're being weird today…weirder than usual, that is." Beast Boy flinched noticeably at Cyborg's mention of the previous evening.

"Nothing happened, dude-" Despite the Changeling's suddenly frantic proclamations that _nothing had happened_, the cybernetic and the Teen Wonder looked unconvinced.

"Beast Boy…" Robin's eyes slowly widened in dawning comprehension, his mind working quickly as a Teen Wonder's should. "Would this have anything to do with what you were asking me about last night?"

The Changeling shut his eyes tightly and just barely nodded.

* * *

Starfire knocked softly on Raven's cold titanium door, not wishing to annoy her empathic friend by a loud disruption. 

"Raven? Are you awake? It is nearly noon, and you have not come out of your room yet…" The Tamaranian girl, receiving no answer, knocked a bit harder now. She heard a few clicks coming from inside the room

"State your name and business. I'll consider your request, then probably ignore you. However, there is a slight chance that I'll come out and talk to you. Step any closer, and you die. Thank you and have a nice day." It was Raven's voice, but on some sort of recording. Starfire had never noticed it before. Then again, she didn't often knock on Raven's door. The few times she'd been in the empath's room, she'd been _taken_ in, with the minor exception of her single unauthorized access the one morning when she'd been so frantic for proper Earthen clothes that she hadn't bothered with formalities but instead simply burst right through the titanium entryway.

"Raven, it is I, Starfire! Are you unwell? Perhaps I could suggest a Tamaranian pudding of illness?"

"…Leave me…" A voice stripped of emotion just barely made it past the door. It was nothing like the recording.

"Raven?" Starfire was becoming worried. "What is wrong? You do not sound yourself!"

"Starfire…just…go…"

"I shall not! You are unwell friend! I will not leave you to suffer!" The Tamaranian princess pounded on the door, now desperate for entrance. Raven sounded almost…distressed. She'd always sounded rather dour, but that was just Raven. Now, however, her voice almost gave the portrayal of depression. That couldn't be good. "Please, I am your friend. I wish to know what is the matter!"

The titanium slab remained shut tight.

* * *

The first thing Taurus noticed upon exiting the bathroom, feeling refreshed and ready for a new day, was a pleading Starfire banging on the door a mere ten feet down the hall. 

"Friend, you _must_ open the door! Why is it that you do not respond to me? I-" Starfire looked up, and her eyes became wide and doleful.

"Honey, what's the matter?" Taurus' gaze wandered to the name engraved on the door that Starfire knelt before. _Raven_. "Is she alright?"

"I do not know!" The Tamaranian princess seemed near desperate to gain entrance. "I fear she may be unwell, but she does not open her door to me!"

"Oh really?" Taurus quirked a single eyebrow. "Well I can fix that mighty quick." And before Starfire could stop her, the brunette war veteran had drawn her lasers from their holsters and blasted down the door.

"Taurus! That was a gravely unwise decision! Raven is often temperamental and will not like that we have obliterated the entrance to her living quarters…" Starfire's voice was unnaturally high pitched and worried now.

"She'll get over it." The newcomer put her guns away and tramped through the destroyed doorway with Starfire trailing close behind.

Raven sat at the center of her room, her eyes white and glowing, a few assorted objects of her room circling her and breaking then falling to the floor. From her illuminated eyes leaked…

Tears.

"Friend!" Starfire squeaked, suddenly filled with compassion to see the empath in such a state. She jumped out from behind Taurus and slid to the Raven's side. "Friend…?" The dark girl blinked, then again, her eyes returning to normal and the objects that had been surrounding her encased in an eerie black aura dropping from the air.

"What…what are you doing here?" Her voice still sounded scratchy, far from her usual monotone. "How did you get in…?" Starfire suddenly backed up a few paces. No point in consoling someone only to be blown to bits at the discovery of breaking and entering.

"We…ah…"

"We let ourselves in, honey." Taurus stepped forward and knelt down beside the empath with concern in her eyes. "Now what the hell's goin' on here?"

"Nothing." Raven shook her head, massaging her temples with her fingertips. "It's nothing. I'm fine."

"Fine? Fine my ass." Taurus extended her hand and gently brushed a tear off of Raven's cheek with her thumb, holding it back for the empath to see. "I don't call that fine."

"Raven, we are your friends. I can assure you that Taurus will keep your matters in utmost secrecy, if that is what concerns you." Starfire crawled closer as well. Seeing a friend so depressed drove her absolutely mad. "Please…what has happened?"

* * *

Well, I was gonna make this chapter much longer, but I decided to split it in two. Sorry! 

I don't have much time to talk, as I'm off to a set painting. Good luck to you all, whatever you may do!

Love,  
SushiChica


	7. Heartbreaking Man Hater

Ew. Sorry, this chapter got slightly postponed.

I've been so busy lately. It really sucks. However, just to make this clear: I have no problems with having a life. In fact I enjoy it immensely. It just kind of sucks how it takes away from my writing. In any case, here's chapter seven!

**Dedication:** To ALL my reviewers, who I've adored since the beginning. I wouldn't be the authoress I am today without your help. No, honestly. Go look back on ExBoyfreind chapter one and see how I've advanced since then. It's really…nice to see. Merry Christmas! Happy Hanukkah! Happy Kwanzaa! Happy New Year! Happy Blorthog! Whatever it is you celebrate, (and if I left your holiday out, I'm sorry!) this is your present for it. I hope you enjoy it!

**Disclaimer:** IF I were the owner of the Teen Titans…I'd have a load more time to write. Well…maybe not. But maybe so! Because technically I'd be writing my fanfictions…into episodes…um…yes? Ew, I'm confused. Oh, I also claim no right to the song "Jerk It Out" by the Caesars, but LISTEN TO IT, it's great.

* * *

"You broke up with Raven?" Cyborg's eyes were as wide as dinner plates. "_Why?_"

"I had my reasons, okay?" Beast Boy shrugged his shoulders uncomfortably.

"How'd she take it?" Robin looked slightly alarmed. Raven's powers and emotions were not to be messed with.

"Not to good." The Changeling desperately wished that the floor would simply open up and swallow him. If the breaking up wasn't bad enough, now he was getting cross-examined for it.

"So…should we start colonizing Mars _now_ dawg, or wait until Raven _really_ blows it?" Nobody laughed at Cyborg's remark.

Probably because it hadn't exactly been a joke.

* * *

"…and he left me in the park." Raven inhaled deeply, perched in a lotus position on her bed. "I went back to Xandu Café, cried my eyes out to Andromeda, then went home…but not before she saddled me with about a year's worth of my favorite green tea." The empath pointed weakly from where she sat in usual lotus position on her bed at what truly was a stockpile of little tea boxes in the corner of her room.

"That's repulsive." Taurus did indeed look disgusted and was already firing up her platinum lasers, pushing herself off the wall on which she was leaning and ready to charge.

"No!" Raven unleashed an unexpected bolt of power that shut off the weapons immediately and caused Taurus to fall back on her wall support. The raven haired girl continued more softly. "No…that wouldn't solve anything." Starfire was looking thoughtfully at the ceiling from her place on the floor, her fingers entwined in her lengthy red hair.

"Did he give you no reason? No excuse for ending your joyous relationship so…abruptly?" The Tamaranian princess didn't want to pick at still-open wounds, and the last thing she wanted was to further injure Raven, but she was interested nonetheless.

"He just said that…that he didn't really love me." The empath shuddered at her recollection of the cold individual who'd spoken those words to her the night before, so different from the Beast Boy she knew. Taurus, however, let a snort of mirth escape her.

"Honey, I may not have been here for long, but I can tell ya that what Shortie told ya is the biggest load of shit I've ever heard. X'hal, please tell me y'all didn't go and believe him…" The brunette looked Raven up and down with a certain degree of scrutiny, as though truly sizing her up for the first time.

"Of course I didn't believe him." And Raven hadn't, once she'd calmed things down enough to think things through. There was no emotion meter like a good ol' Tamaranian, and Taurus was completely right in her assumption. Beast Boy still loved her. The empathic girl had been able to feel the love he felt or her pouring from his soul, poisoning and confusing her. His face had been like a stone, but his heart was bleeding with love for her. So why had he done it? Why did he have to break it off? And why, _why_ had he told her such a blatantly obvious lie? The deception had pierced her like a thousand little needles prickling at her skin. She could deal with a simple breakup, but a lie?

"Listen, sweetie, all the alive I can give you is from the famed halls of Datin' 101." Taurus' glance shifted to Starfire. "And you should hear this too, in case you're ever in this situation." The two slightly younger Titan girls actually gathered around the pretty brunette as she slid down the wall and sat on the floor, forming a rare triangle of Tower girl-bonding. "If a guy ever dumps you, I guarantee he's always lookin' for a reaction to what he's done. He wants to see caused. My advice?" Taurus' eyes panned the room with a glimmer in her eyes. "Act like you don't give a damn. Pretend y'all are perfectly content without him, and _he's_ the one at loss. Show him that he didn't mean all that much to you, and that you can live without him."

"But-" Raven had raised one of her pale, delicate hands ever so slightly in protest, but Taurus grabbed it in her own and pulled it down.

"I know it hurts, honey. _Believe_ me, I know. Men can be scum, but we just have to roll with the punches and deal with it. That doesn't mean we can't fight back."

"And that's how you handlea breakup?" Raven looked undeniably skeptical, pulling her hand from Taurus' grip.

"The best way I know of. Detaches ya easily, and it's a bit of a sting to the bastard that dumped ya." Taurus rose to leave. "But don't take my word for it. I've been holed up in a Tamaranian Army safe-house for the past two years. My social interactions have been, needless to day, a bit limited." The pretty brunette grinned, tipped her Stetson dutifully at both her old her friend and her new friend, then departed with a small wink, her brown boots clicking as she walked.

"She's a…unique one…" Raven summarized, heavily leaning back against the edge of her bed. Despite her dour expression, the empath couldn't help but smile, if only to herself. Taurus came off as a gun-toting war girl, but inside she was just another therapeutic, happy-go-lucky, probably monster hugging Tamaranian. Albeit one that had severe trust issues when it came to men.

"Two years and she had not lost her sense of self. That much is quite clear." Starfire smirked. "Taurus was something of a heartbreaker when we were younger. She knows what she speaks of and regardless of my minute reservations, I urge you to take her advice."

"Taurus, a heartbreaker?" Raven questioned, ignoring the previous conversation for the present. "I guess I can see it."

"Indeed!" Starfire giggled happily at the memory. "Once she learned to fly, she held a place in the heart of every boy who cared to glance in her direction. She was a difficult one, however. Most did not wish to go through the trouble to win her heart. Many attempted. One truly succeeded." The conversation was piquing Raven's interest, and getting her mind off her own problems as well.

"Who?"

"A boy by the name of Tevre'n." Starfire paused, apparently hesitant to say more.

"What happened to Tevre'n?" Raven prodded, now intrigued. "Did he fall apart when he found out that Taurus was supposedly dead?"

"…No." Starfire's voice became hollow and wistful. "No, he did not. He…'broke her heart', as I believe you Earthen people say." The Tamaranian princess spoke gently, as though Taurus might still be in the room to hear the prospective tale. "And in the most atrocious way possible."

* * *

"Let me get this straight, man." Cyborg shifted in his seat. "After a wonderful date of poetry readings and dark, moody café atmosphere, you just broke up with Raven in the middle of a park and left her there to deal? That's cold, dawg."

"Hey, _I'm_ not the one who went out with then dumped Prep Queen then agreed to out with her friend Prep Queen: The Sequel!" Beast Boy was jumpy and defensive, which always meant he didn't want to be pressed for details.

"Their names were Crystal and Trista, not Prep Queen and Prep Queen: The Sequel, and both of 'em were certifiably _insane_!" Cyborg protested haughtily. "You went and dumped _Raven_, your _teammate_ and _housemate_ with enough power to throw you four dimensions over, who, although she is a bit dark and a half demon and a portal from hell to Earth and all, is _completely _normal, and without even giving her a decent _reason_. You tell me who's the dumber one here."

"Hey, I'm not the only one who's fallen for a housemate and teammate who has the power to kick my ass! Look at Robin…Star could fry him in a second!"

"Actually, we're pretty evenly matched. Neither of us has won a match against the other in the past four months, powers or not." Robin shrugged nonchalantly.

"_Man_, that's because you're both trying to _let_ each other win." Cyborg snickered mercilessly.

"You're just as bad!" Beast Boy jumped up from his seat, pointing an accusing finger at his half robotic friend. "You've been drooling over Taurus since she first got here, and she could _murder_ you with those crazy lasers she's got any day of the week!" A silence blanketed the living room, until Cyborg could finally find the voice to speak.

"Y'all are idiots. Taurus' only been here for what…a day? How could I have time to _drool over_ her?"

"That's enough time for you, Cy." Beast Boy glared unhappily.

"Aww, shut up man!"

Robin, who'd spend the majority of the conversation being characteristically silent, a pensive expression adorning his sharp features, chose this moment to speak. "You told Raven you didn't love her anymore?" The Changeling seemed to shrink at the words, and he sat back down as he answered.

"Yeah."

"And is that true?" Robin's eyes, despite his mask, were searchingly menacing.

"…No." Beast Boy's entire frame seemed to whither under his leader's glare, and his face held certain misery.

"Then why'd ya do it Green Genes? Why hurt Raven?" The Changeling was silent for a moment, then looked up at his two teammates and closest friends with undeniable and almost frightening certainty.

"Because it was better than the alternative." He'd risen to leave the room, but Robin wasn't quite done yet. Before Beast Boy could exit the area, the Titans leader spat out the question that had been bothering him since the beginning.

"And she believed you when you gave her that excuse?"

Beast Boy turned back around, if only for a moment.

"Yeah, I think so."

And he was gone.

"You think she believed him?" Robin turned to Cyborg with a questioning look on his face. The half robot snorted.

"Doubt it."

"Yeah…that's what I'm afraid of." The Boy Wonder then rose from his chair and collected any excess dirty dishes and dumped them into the sink, banking on the fact that someone else would find them irritating and clean up the mess.

That person was usually Raven.

At this thought, Robin hastened to, at the very least, run a stream of hot water over the syrupy plates before telling Cyborg that he was going to go train.

* * *

"It was just four months after her fifteenth birthday when Taurus met Tev'ren." Starfire smiled wistfully at the memories that she was unearthing for Raven's benefit. The curious empath in question still sat leaning against her bedside, neck pressed into a pillow for support. Her storyteller lay sprawled out on the floor, cushioned by a layer of, well, cushions that Starfire had carefully laid out moments earlier. "He was enlisted in the Tamaranian army in the same division as we were. Tev'ren had mistakenly spilled his drink on Taurus, and he trailed her back to our table to apologize. He, of course, stayed much longer than was required for a simple apology. I could tell from the moment he had seated himself with us that he, like many others before him, had fallen for Taurus." Raven nodded with mute understanding.

"Taurus, however, was fleeting as always. She acted as though she did not notice his affection, but that only fueled his desire for her. Tev'ren would…'make a move'…as I believe you say, and Taurus would…acknowledge it, though she refused to allow it to continue."

"So how'd he win her over in the end?"

"Humiliation before the public," Starfire responded to Raven's query with a smirk.

"How so?" The empath was obviously desperate to take her mind off of her own situation. Starfire could not have thought of another reason that Raven would be so interested in a story such as this.

"Tev'ren flew to the highest tower of the Tamaranian Army base and sung her a five thousand versed Tamaranian love poem. It was…so beautiful…those who later punished him for such frivolous actions allowed him to finish before demanding that he come down."

"And it worked?"

"Indeed." Starfire rolled onto her back and stared up at the ceiling, well aware of Raven's eyes following her movements. "Taurus was truly touched by the gesture, and soon the fell in love."

"So what happened then?" The empath shifted uncomfortably. "You said he broke her heart."

"The rest…the rest is not for me to tell." Starfire sighed, here eyes visibly wistful. "It is not my story, not my tragedy." The Tamaranian princess blinked a few times, then took a cleansing breath and rose. "And now, if you will forgive our previous intrusion and my now sudden departure, I believe that I have a training appointment with Robin in five minutes." Raven smirked.

"Don't you mean training _date_?"

"There is a difference?" Starfire shot her friend a sly smile before leaving. "And Raven?"

"Yeah, Star?" The empath glanced upward.

"Do not wallow in your despair. It is not fitting of you."

"Some would beg to differ…" Raven thought of all the forums online that she'd come across, calling her a range of things, but mostly 'emo' and 'gothic'. They had no idea, did they?

"Well I 'beg to differ' their 'beg to differ'!" Starfire's eyes were defiant, but it was obvious that she had no idea of what she was talking about.

"Yeah, me too Star."

* * *

Beast Boy met Taurus in the long hallway leading from the living room to the section of the Tower devoted exclusively to bedrooms, and the encounter was none too pleasant. At first sight of the downtrodden green changeling, Taurus rushed him, and in a flurry of long, wavy brown hair and shining alien lasers, Beast Boy found himself pinned against the wall, scarcely able to breathe. The Tamaranian girl's arm was barred against his throat and her knee pressed painfully into his lower abdomen, so that even the slightest move would make him gag. At Beast Boy's head, she'd aimed the tip of one of her specialized Okaaran guns. They held this position for a few seconds in complete silence; Beast Boy too afraid to speak and Taurus too angry. An inferno raged in the newcomer's usually sweet honey eyes, and the Changeling was near positive that he didn't want to know why. He had a feeling he was about to find out, however, and so he nervously braced himself by opening the conversation, if it could be called such a thing, with a strangled and barely audible…

Joke.

"Wow..." Beast Boy felt his chest tighten from lack of air. He took as much of a breath as he could with Taurus' elbow lodged in his throat before continuing. "Someone woke up…on the wrong…side of…the bed this…morning…"

Now, on someone like Cyborg, such an immature quip might have gotten the easygoing cybernetic to lay off, but Taurus was no Cyborg; Taurus was a warrior through and through. As such, Beast Boy's little prod did nothing in his favor, but instead only served to further irritate the already thoroughly pissed off alien girl. The Changeling felt his captor press down harder in her hold on him, increasing the pain and decreasing the air. The gun in Taurus' delicate but expertly trained hand suddenly became a thousand times more threatening as its cold barrel now pressed steadily against green forehead. It seemed that through her fury, Taurus had found her voice; soft but as cold and deadly as a blizzard. The evenly layered sound sent shivers down Beast Boy's spine.

"Do you know the only thing that's keepin' me from pullin' this here trigger and blowin' your atom sized brain out right now?" It took a few seconds for the Changeling to realize just how much trouble he was in.

"Your…kind and…generous heart?" Those five words alone, near impossible for Beast Boy to get out due to his severe lack of breath, caused Taurus to grunt angrily and push the laser down harder.

"_Raven_." And with that single utterance, the brunette released her captive, allowing him to crumple to the floor and take in large gulps of air. Taurus took the liberty to stow her weapon before turning to leave. As Beast Boy watched her go, she looked back just once, with a glare of such pure contempt that it obviously stated "Watch yourself," without room for interpretation.

In the following days Beast Boy would be sure to do just that, but sometimes it's simply not enough to prevent what fate has already plotted.

* * *

"You wished for us to train at this time?" Starfire entered one of three indoor training facilities that the Titans had with a slight yawn, touching the bun she'd wound her hair into gently to be sure that it would remain intact. The room they practiced in was of moderate size; nothing you could train a football team in but not a little hole in the wall either. The floor was tightly covered with a soft black tarp that your feet sunk into ever so slightly every time you took a step. It made those hard falls just a little bit easier to take, which was something every Titan was grateful for at one point or another.

"Yeah. Come get one." Robin was at the other end of the room, going through a closet that held an ever expanding arsenal of weaponry that was mostly used by the Boy Wonder himself, although it was open to anyone in the Tower. This morning he held two long brown sticks in his right hand as he riffed through a collection of CDs with his left. His attire was different this morning; gone was the colorful Robin suit and in its place was a thin white wife beater and a pair of black martial-arts issued pants. The alien princess also donned different attire for training; a simple lavender tank top and similar black pants that she'd gotten with Raven during a recent and rare mall trip. Starfire flew to him and took one of the wooden bo-staffs with strong hands. When it came to training, the couple was all business. "And there's no seducing me when I have you trapped. You know I can't resist you."

Well, almost all business.

"Who has said that you will trap me? Perhaps I will trap you, and _you_ will be the one seducing to escape." Starfire giggled, and Robin allowed a small grin to escape his usual state of composure. He seemed to be breaking free of that stony mask more often, lately, especially around Starfire.

"Okay, let's go." Robin selected a CD and popped it into the player, then quickly moved onto the main floor of the training room, Starfire on the opposite side. She twirled her bo-staff expertly, having been taught to use similar weapons by the Warlords of Okaara. Her skills had only improved since meeting Robin; human though he was, he made a noteworthy opponent. A techno beat, not too loud but not too soft, began to play from the wall-mounted speakers, and the two Titans ran at each other with reckless abandon. The team had recently taken to playing music as they trained, as it helped fine-tune concentration and multitasking skills; listening and fighting at the exact same time.

Plus, it didn't hurt that what they played was just plain good music.

_Wind me up  
Put me down  
Start me off and watch me go  
I'll be runnin' circles around you sooner than you know  
A little off center  
And I'm out of tune  
Just kickin' this can along the avenue  
But I'm alright_

_Cause it's easy once you know how it's done  
__You can't stop now  
It's already begun  
You feel it runnin' through your bones  
And you jerk it out_

Granted, the Titans didn't always agree on music choices. In fact, they had spent a record time of an hour and half arguing over what music to play during a certain training session (Robin had wanted rock, Cyborg had wanted rap, and Raven had called them both bickering imbeciles and threw in something by a band called "Full Blown Rose"). The overall effect of the music, however, highly improved the Titans' skills.

Like now. Robin watched as Starfire fell into a rhythmic pattern, almost like a dance to the music that pounded out of the speakers. Each move she made was in time with the notes she heard, and the Boy Wonder was finding it difficult to keep up.

He'd never been much of a dancer.

Regardless, he was hardly about to give up so easily. He spun his bow staff, slid one of his hands down so that the right was at middle-staff and his left was low-staff, and brought it down hard, only to be met by the familiar clicking noise of Starfire's bo-staff raised high above her head, defending herself. Before he could even bad an eye she pulled her staff out from under his own and whipped it around, having the potential to Robin, and hard, if it hadn't been for his quick reflexes.

Both hit the ground on two solid feet and stopped completely, frozen in time, their eyes locked on one another and an identical grin slowly creeping across both of their faces. It was a sly game of cat and mouse, waiting to see who would be bold and make a move while leaving the other to counter it.

Starfire leaped forward on a whim with a strong, sweeping side-strike, and the dance resumed. There was no doubt, no fear, and of all things, no holding back. It was like an unspoken rule between the two teammates; there was no 'going easy' on one another, regardless of their relationship status. Training was training, and besides, what fun was it if you weren't battling to the blood to see who would trump the other that particular day?

_Shut up  
Hush your mouth  
Can't you hear you talk to loud?  
No can't hear nothin' 'cause I got my head up in the clouds  
I bite off anything that I can chew  
I'm chasing cars up and down the avenue  
But that's ok _

Cause it's easy once you know how it's done

_You can't stop now  
It's already begun  
You feel it runnin' through your bones  
And you jerk it out

* * *

_

Taurus breezed through the automatic doors leading to the living room and kitchen with such an air of nonchalance that you'd think the scene that had occurred only seconds before had never happened. She saw Cyborg sitting at the table out of the corner of her eye, but decided to simply freeze him out. She was still bitter over the previous night's events, and Taurus was not one to easily forgive and forget. Instead of greeting him or even acknowledging the poor cybernetic man's presence, she strode right past him and into the kitchen to retrieve something, anything, to eat. When Taurus got worked up, so did her appetite.

Cyborg watched her completely ignore him, and he figured that he would've preferred some kind of rude, snappish comment rather than the silent treatment. With a pang of remorse, the half robot rose from his chair and crossed to the kitchen to right his wrong. Taurus stood at the counter, preparing herself something that was blocked from Cyborg's view, and before he could even say a single word, the pretty brunette alien spoke without turning to face him.

"If you're thinkin' about makin' another move on me, I'll dump somethin' new on ya, and this time it'll be worse than water." Taurus shifted a bit, so the food that she was preparing was visible to Cyborg, and he cringed as he identified the infamous food. "I've heard that you have quite a dislike for tofu."

"Well…at least you're talking to me." Cyborg grinned as though he'd made a hysterical joke worthy of several million years of repetition.

"And I'm stoppin' _now._" Taurus returned to her food making. It was obvious that she had absolutely no idea of what she was doing as she dribbled chocolate syrup over American-cheese layered tofu. Her driving hunger, however, kept her at her creation, no matter how awful it looked.

"Look, Taurus…" Cyborg paused, but he got no response. Sighing, he continued. "I'm…_sorry_ about what I did last night, okay? I got out of hand, and I shouldn't have." Taurus looked back up at him, a smile gracing her features and a sparkle in her honey colored eyes.

"There, now. Was that so difficult?" The half robot rolled his eyes at her as she topped her…_thing_ with the same lettuce shreds that Raven so often used in her small sandwiches and salads.

"Like pulling steel rods out of my cheeks." The two shared a small laugh. The moment passed though, and Taurus found herself looking at the floor.

"Well then…ya know how it feels for me to say this: I'm sorry too."

"Sorry?" Cyborg watched as the brunette finally took her eyes off the ground and let her piercing honey iris' bore into his own brown ones. "Sorry for what?"

"For…for leadin' you on. It was really awful of me." Taurus sighed and kneaded her head with her hand, breaking the eye contact. Her next words were spoken in a very cold, dry tone, but there was a tinge of sadness somewhere in there. "I guess you could say that I've gotten a bit…hostile to the male species."

"That's…a little more than obvious…" Cyborg shifted uncomfortably, and made a reach at changing the subject. "Do you…really want to eat that? I mean…does it really look appetizing to ya…_at all_?" The diversion seemed to have worked, because the stony face on Taurus look was almost immediately lost in a laugh.

"No, actually. It looks like the most disgustin' think I've ever laid my eyes on, but I'm no grand chef of Earth."

"And how hungry are you, exactly?"

"Famished." Taurus leaned back against the counter, offering the kitchen to Cyborg for use with a slightly amused look in her eyes.

"Well then little lady," the cybernetic man swiped the mess of different foods that Taurus had cobbled together and tossed it in the garbage, "sit back and prepare yourself for the best all-American meat-fest you will ever taste."

* * *

Bo-staff in a defensive position, Robin observed the situation to the best of his abilities, attempting to find some kind of flaw in Starfire's fighting technique today.

There!

While the pretty Tamaranian girl had built up evasiveness by flowing with the music, it had also given her a dangerous repetitive pattern of fighting. She'd begun to attack and defend in the same order just as the music flowed in the same order, and Robin knew that that would be her downfall. Her long red hair was flying now, having fallen from its original bun form and now whipping about as a lethal pony tail. Better to watch out for that than ignore it and make a fatal mistake just because of some hair. Robin watched carefully, waiting and defending himself as he picked up on Starfire's pattern and attempted to choose the right moment for attack.

Now!

Robin dropped down to avoid Starfire's sweep at his head, then swung his bo-staff up, hoping to knock it out of her hand when it was most vulnerable. Instead, however, he was met with another sharp click, and he looked up to see his girlfriend grinning down at him, hair flowing free from it's binding hair tie, her bo-staff still steadily held in both hands. She'd obviously struck in a different style then the way she'd used before, the way he'd been expecting, otherwise her weapon would be gone by now.

"A Tamaranian war tactic: Lull one's opponent into a false sense of security; trick them into believing that they are aware of your fighting habits. When they attempt to use this knowledge against you, change your attack completely."

"Smart." Robin's teeth ground together. He was on the floor, his bo-staff was in a tedious position with Starfire pressing down making it even more unstable, and even he had to admit that he was beat. He had one last move up his sleeve, and although it was technically unfair, he used it anyways. The Boy Wonder dropped his bo-staff completely, causing Starfire to loose balance. He leaped to his feet, and before his sparring partner could hit the ground, he caught her and swept her into a kiss.

"Robin!" She spluttered, pushing him away and laughing at the same time, not altogether that angry, "We are dueling, and we must not-"

"I'm not about to let you win…" He breathed onto her neck, smiling slightly and pushing the lengthy auburn hair back.

"Was it not you who stated that there was to be no seducing when trapped?" Despite her words, Starfire was responding to his touch, leaning into him and wrapping her arms around his neck.

"Yeah, well, I broke a rule or two. You'll live."

_When you jerk it out  
Oh baby don't you know you  
Really gotta jerk it out  
When you jerk it out  
Oh baby don't you know you  
Really gotta jerk it out

* * *

_

"Would you mind if I asked you something?" Cyborg flipped two giant hamburger patties that lay sizzling on the grill before him, but spared a glance back at Taurus who sat at the counter with her elbows propped on the table, holding her head up.

"Shoot." She grinned, enjoying the smell of the cooking meat. The look and scent alone made it about a thousand times better than what she had been previously throwing together.

"What…happened?"

"What happened to what?"

"What happened…to make you hate guys so much?" A silence passed between the two.

"Do you…really want to know?" Taurus said it with so much hesitancy and in a voice so soft that Cyborg almost wished that he'd never brought the subject up.

"If…if you don't want to tell me…"

"No…no. You have every right to know," she shook her head and wrinkled her nose, gesturing to the fresh glass of water by her elbow, "After all, you're the one I chose to launch a man-attack on."

"You don't really have to-"

"I was captured by the Gordanians," Taurus began in a much more confident tone, drowning out Cyborg's pathetic protests, "as Starfire had said. At the time, I had a boyfriend who was also in the Tamaranian Army. His name was Tev'ren."

"Okay…" The half robot had given up all hope on trying to stop his new friend from revealing _exactly_ why she hated men. Instead, he meagerly laid the buns out on their plates.

"The day I was captured by the Gordanians…I was ambushed. It was no random attack. They knew I was doin' a recon mission. They knew I was doin' a recon without Star." Cyborg was beginning to see where this was going, and hated himself even more for pushing Taurus into bringing up such history. "They captured me and tortured me, but they never broke me. Never did they manage to break me." Taurus smiled at the thought. "They did, however, manage to break someone else. That someone else was Tev'ren. I later found out that they'd captured Tev'ren a week before they'd captured me, but before they even lay a torturin' finger on him, he told them that he'd turn me over to them if they let him go. They, of course, agreed, as I was much more valuable a prize than he was."

"Cocky, are we?" Cyborg grinned and placed slices of cheese over the nearly finished burger patties.

"I'm just sayin' that I had taken down a crapload of Gordanians with Starfire, and capturin' someone like me was not exactly an everyday type thing." Taurus shrugged. "In any case, Tev'ren gave them my exact recon mission, down to the last coordinate, then set them loose on me. I didn't go down without a fight, that was for sure, but I was caught off guard and hopelessly outnumbered."

"How many?" Cyborg cocked a curious eyebrow.

"At least fifty."

"Ooh…"

"Yep. There was no way I was beatin' that crowd, but I injured a hell of a lot of 'em, you can be sure of that." Taurus shook her head sadly. "In the middle of their torture, they told me to look at the face of my betrayer…and when I saw Tev'ren, I lost it. I literally broke free of my bonds and attacked him with every last ounce of energy I had before passin' out due to lack of energy…and blood. They cut me up pretty badly in that place."

"Really? I don't see any scars…" It was a light remark, but Taurus seemed to clam up at Cyborg's words.

"Maybe it's because I don't like showin' them…" she whispered, eyes lowered.

"What was that?" The half robot was laying the hamburger patties down on the plates and hadn't heard Taurus's soft remark.

"…Nothin'." The Tamaranian girl looked down at the plate that was placed before her; at the hamburger that sat steaming in her face.

"Take a bite. It's not to bad, man, if I do say so myself." Taurus did so, chewing slowly and thoughtfully. Cyborg dove into his burger, but still watched for a reaction. "…Well?"

"It's…" The pretty brunette alien swallowed and smiled softly, "It's great."

* * *

"Should we not be training?" Starfire murmured, before falling victim to another onslaught of Robin's hot, passionate kisses.

"We trained. You were awesome. Spectacular. We're done."

"It seems that our relationship is unbeneficial to you. I have never seen you so uninterested in training."

"You know I still like to train…but…when I'm around you…Princess, I…I want to do these…crazy things…things to impress you…things to make you love me…" The Boy Wonder buried his face into Starfire's neck, pressing his lips to her exposed flesh on occasion and inhaling the light, flowery scent of her hair.

"Oh, Robin, I am already in love with you-" Starfire sighed, smiled softly, and pushed him back so that she could look him in the eye.

"Call me selfish." The Boy Wonder whispered, pressing his lips to his girlfriend's then pulling away just as quickly. "I want you to love me more."

"…Robin," Starfire broke from his embrace and, after a short pause, positioned him a few inches back. "stand here. Do not move, whatever happens."

"Um…Star…what're you-"

"Shh!" The beautiful redhead placed a single slender fingertip over Robin's open mouth, which shut abruptly at her touch. "Do not fear, and do not move; not an inch."

"O…kay…" Starfire took a few steps back, so that she was a good two meters from her boyfriend. They stood in quiet contemplation, completely unmoving, their eyes locked on one another.

"Star…"

"Hush!" Starfire's eyes were piercing. "There is no speaking. Nothing is to be said." They fell silent once again, and time seemed to stand still as they simply remained in their positions and stared. Suddenly, the Tamaranian princess broke the calm with a bellowing war-cry, soaring upward then diving at Robin, both her eyes and her fists brightly glowing green. Robin's first inclination was to assume a fighting stance, to pull out his bow staff and counter this unexpected and slightly unpleasant attack, but Starfire's words echoed in his head.

"_Do not move, whatever happens. Shh. Do not fear, and do not move; not an inch."_

And so, against his better judgment, Robin remained perfectly still as Starfire came flying at him, primed for battle. Just as he'd given up all hope of escaping unscathed from his girlfriend's radiating fists, they halted a mere inch from his crown, still glowing brightly.

"…Good," Starfire murmured holding her threatening position, "Most splendid indeed." She finally extinguished her power-lit fists and her eyes slowly lost their illumination.

"_What_ was most splendid?" Robin couldn't help but feel the least bit irritated, taking the delicately tanned fist that still hovered near his temple into his two hands. "I thought you were going to kill me!"

"My dear Robin, did you truly believe that I would ever harm you?" The Boy Wonder stuttered over his answer, the words tumbling out of his mouth before he could put them into order.

"I…but…then…you…fists…thought…so…"

"You are not making sense, Robin." Starfire let a bubbly giggle escape her, but when her gales had passed she became unusually solemn. The one hand that wasn't encased in Robin's two rose to his cheek and touched the skin softly. "They say that to love is to give someone the power to harm you greatly, but have enough faith in them that you know they won't."

"I-" Starfire cut him off before he could even complete a thought.

"I am pleased to know you put your trust in me."

"Does that work vice versa?" The Boy Wonder couldn't help but question, his eyes searching. The blank look on his girlfriend's face told him that she hadn't understood his question. "What I mean is…I trust you. I really do. But…" A smirk was tugging at the corner of Robin's lips, "do you trust me?" There was not a moment's hesitation as Starfire leaned forward and pressed her lips to his, and when she broke away, she whispered only one word into his ear, her fiery red hair cascading over her shoulders and falling sporadically around them both.

"_Always_."

* * *

Now everyone say "aww!" You know it's cute. It's so funny, this little RobStar section jumped from training to hot-and-heavy make-out, to philosophy. Interesting mix. I think I like it.

I know that there was like…little to no Raven or Beast Boy…facetime, and the next chapter is rather Taurus-centered (but it's not like I'm kicking all the other characters away) but I promise that the chapter after that…

-laughs evilly-

Well, you'll see.

Well…this chapter revealed a bit more information about Taurus…hmm. Remember it all! All of it I tell you!

**ATTENTION: SushiChica now has a FORUM! Go check it out sometime!**

Love,  
SushiChica

**SUSHICHICA'S MASS UPDATE LIST:**

_Teen Titans:_

-Faith: Sequel to ExBoyfriend (Romance/Drama; seventh chapter) **updated.**  
-When They Were Bad (Action/Adventure/Drama; fourth chapter) **updated.**

-Fly (Romance oneshot) **posted.**

-The Fight for Starfire (Humor/Romance oneshot) **to be posted. **

-Documentary of Titans Tower (Humor/General oneshot) **to be** **posted.**

_Code Lyoko:_

-One of the Boys (Romance/Drama; first chapter) **to be** **posted.**

-Ringing in the New Year (Romance/Humor oneshot) **to be** **posted.**

Get moving people! You've got a LOT of reading ahead of you!

XD

Kidding.

Read what sounds interesting to you.

And have FUN everyone!


	8. Trial and Error

Okay, so I've been a hiatus for, like, EVER. For the most part it was because my schoolwork went crazy from late January to early June, but once I got into summer, I'd been away so long that I couldn't get any motivation to write. I knew I'd get the inspiration eventually, and finally…I did. I'm not sure how, but suddenly after about 5 months of collecting digital dust on my hard drive…this chapter just kind of came together. It's a bit of a filler, which is probably why it was so hard to write (all the fun stuff is in the next chapter), but there's some stuff that I simply MUST establish in this chapter, and so it has to be written whether I like it or not. Anyways, sorry I've been gone so long, and I really hope you haven't forgotten me.

Dedication: To Brittany, for our conspiracies (remember: say that she groped/violated you or "touched you in places you didn't feel comfortable with" and you can totally get away with whacking her in the face with a baseball bat), our laughter, and all those absolutely crazy and amazing times. Thanks for everything, darling, you've always kept me smiling. Happy birthday.

Disclaimer: Yeah, um, _no_.

* * *

It was half past five when Beast Boy kicked the disheveled green covers from his bed, internally chiding himself for being awake at such an obscene time as soon as his blurry eyes found the glowing red numbers of the alarm clock that lay on the ground. His room was a disaster area, that was nothing new, but this morning it seemed to be in a worse condition than usual. Raven had often commented on her consideration of calling in a haz-mat team to, if possible, take care of the "hopeless heaps of junk" that surrounded him; if Raven could see the room now, she might've just keeled over and died. After his encounter with his male teammates, who'd bombarded him with painful questions, and Taurus, who'd bombarded him with painful actions, the previous day, the defeated Changeling had simply locked himself in his room and refused to come out. What he'd done in there for the following hours was beyond any of the other Titans, even the two who couldn't help but come to his door and check on him: Starfire and Cyborg. His actions wouldn't have interested them anyways; he'd spent most of the time crashing on the tattered futon that he'd acquired a while back at the junk yard where they'd been fighting Mumbo. The highlight of his evening had been sneaking out through this window to retrieve a pizza for his lonely dinner (whose scattered remains were now laying haphazardly about the room); the same window that Terra had taken him through the night she'd betrayed him.

And as he'd flown from that window in the form of a falcon, so many hours ago, Beast Boy couldn't help but feel that somehow, he'd betrayed Raven.

Now, as the first bright rays of summer's dawn spilled through the large glass pane and onto a carpeted floor that the empath in question would've found positively revolting, Beast Boy felt overcome with a sinking feeling; the type where one part of your brain is telling you to curl up and die and the other is saying that it was your blunder, so shut up and deal with it. The Changeling didn't really like either of these options, and so he settled for something between the two extremes.

Curl up and deal with it.

Despite his decision, he knew that he couldn't lock himself away forever. He knew that, eventually, he'd saunter out from his room, make a joke or two for whoever cared to listen, and soon fall back into his normal place in the Tower. He wasn't quite ready to greet the world head on at what was now 5:45 in the morning, however, and so he slowly allowed himself to return to sleep, glaring almost angrily at the luminescent red numbers of his alarm clock, as though they were the case of all his problems.

----

Robin the Boy Wonder awoke with an unusual but strong craving for a tall glass of orange juice. This was strange to him, as Red Bull had been his most recent drink of choice. Nevertheless, he emerged from his room a mere ten minutes later, fully dressed and hell-bent on retrieving a dose of the tangy fruit drink for his personal consumption. He was hardly surprised to find Raven already positioned at the counter of the kitchen, delicately sipping the same green tea that she religiously drank at least twice a day (if not more) from a white mug and reading a thick black book, ominously labeled _Death and Decay_ in large red letters along the spine.

"Morning," he greeted, crossing to Raven's side. He paused as he took in the title of her large volume, then taped the red lettering with a small grin. "Planning on participating any time soon?"

"You're a riot," Raven rolled her eyes, but allowed them to scan the title again before marking her place and setting the book down on the counter. _Death and Decay_.

Participation.

…Hilarious.

"A simple 'good morning' would suffice, you know." Robin remarked, pulling open the refrigerator and choosing his much desired orange juice. As he placed the carton beside the glass he'd just drawn from a nearby cabinet, however, the Boy Wonder caught the fleeting forlorn expression that had surfaced on his teammate's face for mere moments before the usual indifference returned. He decided then and there that he'd stop being bothersome and start being a proper friend. Before he could formulate anything comforting to say, however, Raven spoke.

"You know, don't you?" The question had, to a certain extent, come out of nowhere, catching Robin off guard and causing him to blurt out a stuttered and unintentionally unsympathetic response.

"Know what?" The Boy Wonder winced at the sharp glare Raven directed at him and attempted to remedy his obvious lie after draining his glass. "…Okay, yeah, I know. Are you okay?"

"Fine. Great. Dandy." Raven spat. "Why would anyone think otherwise?"

"…For one thing, you used the word 'dandy;'" Robin carefully poured himself another helping of orange juice.

"Quite the comedian this morning, aren't we?" The empath took a small sip of her tea and fingered one of the corners of her thick paperback book in an attempt to distract herself. She was quite ready to hurl the hefty volume at her leader had he not spoken his next words so sincerely.

"Well, for what it's worth, I'm sorry he did that to you." Raven's eyes flashed despite the fact that she felt her anger slowly crumbling into sadness.

"Don't pity me."

"I'm not pitying, I'm sympathizing. There's a difference." Robin began to wash his now empty glass, orange juice craving satisfied.

"Whatever."

"…Look, I know you're trying to let it go, so I will too." The Boy Wonder shrugged.

"Just know that…you didn't deserve that." He put a hand on the dark girl's shoulder, and she allowed it to stay there for a short amount of time.

"Thank…thank you." Raven shook her head to clear it, then shrugged off her partner's comforting grip. "What's planned for today?"

"I decided we'd make today a training day." Robin took the seat beside Raven at the kitchen counter. "We need to run Taurus through a few tests, although I doubt she'll do anything but well. She was, after all, Star's partner in the Tamaranian Army."

"…I see. Didn't you and Starfire just train yesterday?"

"That…didn't turn out to be…the exact training we'd hoped."

"…You two ended up making out, didn't you?"

"Maybe." Robin smirked slightly, then tilted his head to the side as he eyed his friend.

"Raven?"

"Mmhm?"

"Stop trying to ignore your pain."

"…Shut up," the empath spat, but with a smile, punching her friend lightly on the arm.

----

Cyborg entered the living room of Titans Tower at half past nine and was greeted with a somewhat usual morning scene. Raven sat at the kitchen counter with an obscure book in her hands and a steaming cup of tea within reach; probably her fourth of the day if the half robot had to take a guess. On the couch sat a sleepy looking Beast Boy, furiously thumbing the brand new GameStation controller in hopes of outmaneuvering the computer controlled image on the brand new plasma screen television (after the Scorpio affair two months ago, some replacements and remodeling had been in order). All in all, it was an incredibly normal view to an everyday onlooker.

Unfortunately, Cyborg would've had to be completely robotic to not feel the heavy blanket of tension that had settled over the room.

"Er…you okay Raven?" Cyborg strode to her side, but she barely looked up in response.

"I'm fine," the empath breathed softly.

"You sure? Cause, uh-"

"_Why_ is it that _everyone_ thinks I'm going to fall apart emotionally and psychologically over some _stupid…little_…_crush_?" Venom seeped from each of her last three words as she snapped her book shut and summoned her most wintry glare, usually reserved for the perverted "hardcore Goths" who "knew her pain" and wanted to "make beautiful, depressing music" with her.

_Ew._

Off to the side, Beast Boy swore loudly as his thumb slipped off the joystick of his controller and he was forced to watch his character fall off the edge of the screen and into pixilated oblivion.

"Whoa, sorry," Cyborg lifted his hands in the universal sign for peace (well, almost…there had been some debate when Starfire mentioned that on the planet Fniblendar, the gesture actually symbolized the discovery of a massacred colony) and backed away slowly. He needn't have worried, though. Raven's fury died as suddenly as it had arisen.

"I'm fine," she repeated stubbornly, grabbing her mug and discarding it in the sink. "Sorry I snapped."

"I guess I shouldn't have pried," Cyborg shrugged, attempting a smile. The look in Raven's eyes told him she appreciated the consideration before she moved towards the door. "Uh…you seen Robin?"

"We were talking earlier this morning. I think he went to go train on your new simulation course. He mentioned something about running Taurus through it later on," Raven remarked plainly, smoothly stepping into the hallway and allowing the automatic door to close behind her.

It took Cyborg a surprisingly short amount of time to throw together a standard breakfast for himself, consisting of three scrambled eggs, a stack of bacon, and four frozen waffles. Soon he'd set up camp next to Beast Boy on the couch and was munching away happily while his friend attempted to gain back his previously lost life.

"I hope you know that today you _beat_ the poor chicken embryo before shoving it in your mo-"

"I'm not listening to you," Cyborg pushed the Changeling with the hand that wasn't busy stuffing food down his throat. "You won't rain on my breakfast parade."

"It's _your_ fault that the chicken embryo isn't eating breakfast right now." Beast Boy finally gave up on his game and tossed his controller to the side, eyeing his friend's food with disgust. "I wonder whether it was a girl or a boy chicken…?"

"_Shaddup,_" the half robot shoved the last piece of egg into his mouth defiantly and enjoyed every last chew.

"So…what did you do last night?" Beast Boy asked, attempting to get his mind off of the little pig who was probably missing his butt right now because Cyborg was busy digesting it.

"You mean while you were busy disconnecting yourself from humanity?" He swallowed. "Nothin' really. Hung with Taurus for a while in the afternoon…_she_ liked my Triple Meat Sandwich…"

"Yeah, people without souls tend to like them," the Changeling grumbled with an annoyed expression on his face.

"Are you tellin' me I don't have a soul?" Cyborg poked his friend playfully with the end of his fork.

"You're an exception."

"And Taurus?"

"What about her?"

"She doesn't have a soul? Just because she likes my Triple Meat Sandwich?"

"…Among other reasons."

"Okay," Cyborg put his now empty plates on the floor and gave the green boy beside him a good hard look, "what's wrong with her?"

"She _cornered_ me, dude! She saw me in a hall and tried to blow my brains out!"

"Did she say _why_?"

"She said why she _didn't_…" Beast Boy shifted uncomfortably.

"And why was that?"

"…Raven."

"Aah," Cyborg nodded, obviously understanding something that the Changeling didn't.

"What?"

"Nothing."

"So you agree that she's a hell demon?"

"No, not at all," the half robot's expression hardened. "And you don't have any right to say that about her."

"She tried to-"

"I know what she tried to do. I know what it was probably a result of. Now I want you to go apologize to her and tell her breakfast is here if she wants it and that Robin wants to run her through some testing this afternoon."

"_Me_ apologize to _her_? Are you _kidding_?" Cyborg's face didn't alter in the slightest. "You're not kidding."

"No. She's been through more than you think." There was a pause.

"…Okay, _fine_, but if she tries to kill me again, you're gonna have to admit that I'm right about her."

"Whatever, man. Just go talk to Taurus and try not to piss her off with a joke or something."

----

Taurus had just finished dragging the plain black comb that Starfire had provided the night before through her dulling brown hair when she heard a knock on her bedroom door. The Tamaranian girl had awoken a few hours earlier and spent her post-changing time examining herself carefully in the mirror over her dresser, taking her tired eyes and thin, almost sickly looking arms into consideration. She was beginning to look more and more like the girl she'd been before becoming friends with Starfire; the scrawny little kid who wasn't that pretty, wasn't that talented, and wasn't that strong, mostly because she was unhappy both with herself and with the way most people treated her back then. Taurus lacked the super strength so common among her people and had been forced to build up her own muscle, all of which had slowly but surely faded away. Two years in a safe house hadn't exactly been healthy (or good for her complexion, she noted, the unnaturally pale skin on her arms and face suddenly jumping out under her careful gaze), but it had been a necessary evil towards her survival. With a small sigh, Taurus leaned closer to the mirror, nose inches away from the glass, and ran a finger down her cheek then dragged it across her neck, as though tracing a nonexistent pattern on her smooth skin.

_Their favorite place…_

Before she could allow herself to continue the thought, the brunette turned on her heel and flipped the control to open her door.

"…Mornin'," she greeted her visitor uncertainly, eyebrow lifted in slight astonishment. In the hall stood Beast Boy, his eyes lowered and his fingers moving in some strange dance of their own design.

"Hi," the changeling seemed to be trying to say something more, but wouldn't allow himself.

"…Is there a reason y'all are standin' outside my door right now, or is this just a random Titans wake up call that you were unfortunate enough to get sent on?" Taurus bit her lip once the question tumbled out of her mouth. She'd already nearly strangled him yesterday; perhaps she should take a step back and try _not_ being the resident femi-nazi.

"Yeah…um," Beast Boy took a deep breath, then let his next words fly out in a rushed frenzy. "So, I don't know what I did to offend you but whatever it is I'm sorry about it and I'm here to tell you that breakfast is ready and Robin's gonna run you through Cy's latest training course afterwards and I'd like it if you would accept my apology so I don't have to wonder if I'm gonna die every time I see you as long as you're here." The Tamaranian regarded him carefully, and he couldn't help but notice the way her fingers brushed the gun at her hip as she placed a hand just above the holster.

"I'm not the one you should be apologizin' to, honey, but I will admit that I got a bit out of hand las' night. I'll be down for breakfast in a bit." Locks of wavy brown hair flew wildly as Taurus turned away from the door, her hand reaching for the switch to close it, but when she found the button she stopped and looked back at the green boy still loitering in the hall. "An' out of curiosity, who sent y'all to apologize to me?"

Beast Boy shifted uncomfortably. "Cyborg."

"Thought so," Taurus nodded, and to the changeling's surprise the corners of her mouth were turned up in a barely noticeable smile. "Consider yourself safe from my lasers." The door slid shut.

"A _bit_ out of hand…" Beast Boy muttered darkly, making his way back to the living room. "Hope she didn't pay _money_ for that mood swing detector…"

----

"This is one of our training courses," Raven explained with a wave of her hand in the direction of an extensive field that was currently sending different things flying at a small, multi-colored human who dodged or destroyed every obstacle with precision. Taurus could've sworn it wasn't there when she arrived. "We store it underground when it's not in use."

Oh.

"And I'm gonna have to go through that?" The brunette Tamaranian carefully watched as Robin took out a pair of flying daggers that had been launched in his direction.

"Yeah, soon as Robin's done down there," Cyborg said from behind the two girls, Beast Boy and Starfire behind him.

"Heh, sure it's nothing a badass Tamaranian war chick couldn't handle, right?" The green boy shrunk under Starfire's cold glare.

"She is _not_ a young chicken, as I have said of myself on a multitude of occasions!"

"We'll be watching you here, from the observation deck," Raven continued, rolling her eyes at her teammates and gesturing to the platform on which they stood, a control panel sitting adjacent to the glass railing erected to keep careless people from falling. "Do you have any idea how much you can handle? Our courses range from one to twenty in difficulty."

"Go for the fifteen," Cyborg advised, moving away from his two bickering friends who were still going at one another about small chickens and dead chicken embryo. "It won't kill you, but it's no walk in the park either."

"I guess I'll do that then," Taurus decided with a curt nod as Robin ended his run and was making his way up to the platform.

"How'd I do?" He asked of Raven, who currently sat at the controls of the course.

"One minute, nine seconds," the empath informed him, wincing as he swore.

"I was going for one minute flat," he grumbled, toweling his sweat soaked hair.

"Dude, it was a level twenty run. Go easy on yourself," Beast Boy and Starfire had ended their argument and decided to join their friends to witness Taurus' trial.

"Yeah, yeah," Robin took the seat at the control panel that Raven had recently vacated.

"My turn now?" Taurus couldn't help but feel the slightest bit of apprehension. Sure, she was a Tamaranian war girl, but that didn't mean that she was any less nervous about showing off her abilities to these…these _Titans_. These amazing people with amazing powers. All she had was a couple guns and the ability to fly. Starfire was one thing, but all of them put together, all of them staring at her and judging her performance?

She'd never admit it, but the whole ordeal was rather nerve wracking.

Her feet hit the starting line several feet below the observation deck, and she could see Starfire, Raven, and Beast Boy looking over the railing at her while Robin manned the controls and Cyborg looked over his shoulder. There was a loud buzz…and the course was activated.

Taurus took to the sky immediately, figuring she'd probably get a better look at what she was dealing with from the sky rather than on the ground. As soon as she moved, a pair of twin robotic chords shot out at her, but with a quick turn and a couple rounds of laser fire, they fell to the ground in defeat. She flew forward, avoiding shots of slime and blasting freeze discs and tiny electric bots into oblivion, hair flying wildly but her faithful Stetson staying firmly on her crown. It seemed that even after two years of confinement, her soldier's sense hadn't left her after all…or so she thought.

Then came the flying daggers.

They were small, fast, and there were a lot of them. That was the first thing Taurus noticed when they came at her, spinning madly and threatening to lacerate every last piece of flesh on her body. Without a second thought, she rose twin lasers and began to fire madly, weaving in and out of the dangerous projectiles. Just when she'd thought she was out of the fire, she fell headfirst into the frying pan when she failed to noticed the second set that emerged from the opposite direction. She was taken aback, not expecting the second wave of knives, but in her time she'd always learned to expect the unexpected. It was when she didn't that disaster struck.

She missed one, just one of the tiny knives with her laser, and it was that same dagger that sliced her across the cheek.

She froze at the contact, literally stopping all movement, hanging in the air as though in a trance, a thousand voices screaming in her head. A thin line of blood trailed down her cheek and the course raged on, sending another round of freeze discs in her direction from far off, but Taurus barely noticed, her eyes wide and terrified as she raised a hand and ran a single finger over the cut.

"_Stop_," she whispered softly at the voices…the voices and the pictures and the sickening smell of that blood-soaked room. "Go _away_…" The freeze disks were drawing ever nearer, but she could only hang in the air, horrified beyond reason.

"_Taurus!_" A female voice called at her, and suddenly the brunette Tamaranian closed her eyes and dropped from the sky, avoiding the freeze discs that soared overhead, but speeding toward the rocky ground at an alarming rate.

----

"She's pretty good," Robin commented, turning to his team after watching Taurus sent a round of lasers into the mouth of a cannon to stop it from shooting any more slime at her.

"We trained together for a rather long time," Starfire confirmed, nodding. "Courses such as this one are quite familiar to her, although there might be some foreign elements…"

"Whoa, what happened to her?" Beast Boy pointed over the edge of the glass, all eyes following his finger to where Taurus was seemingly hanging in the air, immobile and in the way of a round of freeze discs. She didn't seem to be going anywhere.

"…Stop the course," Raven said to Robin, eyes never leaving the brunette Tamaranian.

"What?" Robin shot her a confused look. "I'm sure she'll-"

"_Stop the course!_" The empath snapped harshly, sending a bolt of black energy at the control panel to deactivate any other obstacles that might attack the frozen girl just as Starfire leaped over the glass railing and called out to her friend, attempting to get her off the course.

Then Taurus simply dropped out of the sky.

"Those freeze discs are still goin', man," Cyborg remarked heavily, transforming his arm into his sonic cannon. "I'll try to take 'em out from here." Beast Boy morphed into a pterodactyl and began the long decent to the ground, hoping, like Starfire, to make it before Taurus did.

The Tamaranian princess shouted after her friend again, but there was no response. She was going to fast…there was no way to stop it.

Taurus hit the ground with a crack, her shoulder colliding with a large rock as she made contact. Starfire and Beast Boy were at her side in mere moments.

"…Taurus?" The green eyed alien placed a shaking hand on her friend. "Taurus?"

No response.

----

It was the pain that woke her; a dull, throbbing pain in her shoulder that accentuated dramatically when she accidentally rolled onto her side. Her eyes shot open upon contact and she swore loudly, body jolting into a sitting position on the bed where she'd been placed. What had happened, why was she in so much pain? Suddenly the training course appeared clearly in her head.

Oh, right. That.

_Shit._

Off to the side, Robin glanced up from a file he'd been examining at the sudden commotion.

"Awake?" He questioned, laying the manila folder on the floor.

"What tipped ya off?" Taurus growled, raising a hand to rub her shoulder and hopefully ease the pain.

"Don't touch it," Robin warned, getting up and stepping forward. "Starfire said it would screw up that Tamaranian medicine she made and gave to you. Speaking of which, I'm supposed to give you the second does as soon as you wake up." He moved to a table near the bed and exchanged his green gloves with a pair of surgical latex ones while the brunette girl sighed and moved her arm further up, running her fingers over the fresh bandage that someone had used to protect the cut on her face.

"So…what're you doin' here exactly?" She questioned as Robin took a small syringe from one of many clear plastic bags that littered the surface of the table he stood at and removed the protective cap from the tip of the needle.

"Waiting for you to wake up so I can administer the second dose."

"Why you?"

"We take turns watching if someone is out for a prolonged period of time and requires monitoring," Robin shrugged and turned towards Taurus, needle in hand. "It was my turn."

"How long have I been unconscious?" The Tamaranian asked softly, leaning back onto her pillow and being careful not to put too much pressure on the injury.

"Few hours," the Boy Wonder stated, taking the girl's wrist and extending it so he could inject Starfire's medication.

"How long is a few _hours_?" Taurus spat, wrenching her arm out of his grip and away from the syringe holding hand.

"…Six. It's around five PM right now."

"Side effect of the medication Star gave me," Taurus insisted, more to herself than to Robin. "That's all."

"No one's judging you." She didn't know what to say to that. After a short pause, she threw her arm back into Robin's hands.

"Jus' shoot me with the damn thing. The second dose'll be shorter. You'll see."

"Yeah," was his only response before putting the needle to the vein and injecting. Taurus slumped forward immediately. Robin turned away then, stripping his gloves off and tossing the used syringe in a standard biohazard trashcan. He was about to put on his usual green gloves again when a hand reached out and roughly grabbed his wrist, wrenching him back to Taurus' bedside. Her eyes were wide open, but glassy and unfocused. Robin tried to yank his hand away but he found that even without alien strength, Taurus had a death grip from hell. Her breathing was harsh and labored, as though she struggled for each gulp of air. She never looked at him, but her mouth slowly…shakily began to move.

"D…do you…"

Robin concentrated carefully, attempting to comprehend the alien girl's words.

"Do you…love…do you love her?" He was surprised by the question, but it didn't stop his curiosity.

"Starfire? Do I love Starfire?" Still no eye contact, but a soft nod. "Yeah. I do. Of course I do."

"_Liar_," Taurus whispered darkly, eyes still vacant, lips trembling as she spoke.

"I'm not lying," Robin continued his attempts to wrench his wrist out of her killer grasp. "Star means a lot to me-"

"_LIES!" _The brunette girl suddenly yelled, thrusting Robin away and sending him flying into the opposite wall with a dull thud. She continued her babble in a slightly louder tone, but her voice continued to shake. "You…you don't…t…care. You…you say you love her…b…but when…when it comes down to…her life a…and yours," for the first time since her abnormal behavior began, Taurus turned her head to look directly at Robin with her blank eyes and offered him a small, knowing smile, "you…you'll chose your own, you sel…selfish bastard." Suddenly her head snapped away from his direction and she began muttering in a smooth yet jumbled mix of Tamaranian and English. The stunned Boy Wonder attempted to pick up the bits he understood among the muddle of words.

"You can't frighten me, you…Koriand'r…but that's not possible…_you will not break me, you son of a bitch!_ Stop…jus'…jus' make the bleedin' stop…jus'…_I hate you! I will hunt you down and kill you! You can't imagine how much I hate you…you and your despicable kind…_jus'…jus' the medication. It's jus' the medication, the second dose'll be shorter, you'll see…I failed didn't I? Failed…I didn't make it through…didn't make it through the course…" Taurus' words began to slow, and soon they stopped altogether.

Robin stared at the now limp form in shocked awe. Where minutes before, she'd been in some strange trance that had caused her to question his love for Starfire, the girl was now resting peacefully, eyes shut and breathing steady. His head wasn't fully functioning yet, but the Boy Wonder did have enough sense to grab his communicator and call the only person he could think of who might know what had happened to the room.

----

"Yes, unfortunately that is a side effect of the medication I made," Starfire acknowledged after hearing Robin's explanation. She'd rushed to the infirmary moments after she'd gotten his summons, and now sat in a chair beside Taurus' bed. "The first does causes a prolonged period of unconsciousness, and the second elevates paranoia. In asking if you truly loved me, she was merely concerned for my well being, I assure you." She moved a hand to rest on Robin's knee, her eyes warm.

"And all that talk about your life versus mine?" The ebony haired boy questioned, leaning back in his chair and smiling at his girlfriend's small gesture of comfort.

"That-" Starfire caught herself, gaze suddenly dropping to the throw rug on the floor. "It is not my story to tell."

"Star," Robin raised an eyebrow at her, "Taurus threw me into a _wall_. I need to know why." There was a long silence, then the Tamaranian princess began to speak.

"There was a boy, a fellow warrior in the Army, named Tev'ren with whom she was partaking in the courtship. He was captured, but gave Taurus, a more valuable asset, up willingly to spare his own life. After the Gordanians ambushed her under his direction then tortured her under his eye without so much as an attempt to assist her, they let him go. Taurus spent the next days undergoing unrestricted torture until she finally escaped. Her paranoia might have lead her to believe that you would do something similar given the situation."

"…Wow," Robin took Starfire's hand off his knee and clasped it between his palms, allowing their fingers to intertwine. "You know that I'd never do that to you, right?"

"Of course I do," the auburn haired girl sighed, resting her head on his shoulder.

"Hey!" Cyborg's voice suddenly buzzed over the intercom. "You two done with that second injection yet? We're gonna watch a movie, and if ya aren't here soon, you won't get a say in the selection." Starfire looked up at Robin with a smirk.

"Perhaps we should return to them. I do not particularly wish to watch _Xtreme Tofu_ again. Taurus does not need us any more, now that the second dose has been administered. She will wake up healed soon."

"Yeah," they rose simultaneously, hand in hand, and Robin gestured toward the door with a nod. "Let's go."

----

Taurus' second awakening was slow and considerably less painful the her first. In fact, she noticed that the pain had nearly vanished as she rubbed her eyes sleepily. Off to the side, a wall mounted clock glowed 8:15 PM. A little over two hours. She smirked.

_I told him it was jus' the medication…_

Shaking her head slightly and taking her Stetson off the nightstand beside her infirmary bed where someone had thoughtfully placed it, Taurus wandered out the door feeling rested and well, if not slightly embarrassed by her blunder earlier in the day. But she'd heard them…heard their laughs, heard her own screams…heard the sickening sound of her blood hitting the already red soaked floor. It wasn't something she _enjoyed_ remembering, and certainly something she didn't feel the need to be reminded of to begin with.

It didn't take her long to find the door to the living room.

"Taurus!" Starfire soared to her and nearly tackled the brunette off her feet the moment she walked through the door. "You are well again?"

"Course I am. Thanks for the meds," the Tamaranian girl smiled warmly.

"I would've done something," Raven shrugged from her place on the couch, where she held a television remote in her hands. "But Starfire insisted that you take whatever she gave you instead."

"Thanks Raven, but Star made me somethin' we used on the field constantly in the war to heal up our wounds. Never seems to fail," her eyes panned the room. Beast Boy was sitting at the opposite end of the couch, munching popcorn and discussing something with Robin. "What've y'all been doin' while I was restin' up?"

"Movie," Robin called over his shoulder. "A movie totally not worth seeing."

"Dude, you've got to be _kidding_ me! _Inkip: Ninja Warrior of the Vacuums _has gotta be the best movie in existence!" Beast Boy shot his friend an annoyed glare.

"So you keep telling me," the Boy Wonder shook his head warily.

"Soda?" Cyborg had been in the kitchen, tossing out old food no longer fit to eat as per Raven's strict instructions. He came out holding a round of cold beverages, passing them to each of the Titans in turn, then offering one to Taurus.

"Uh…sure," she accepted the canister, popping it open and taking a long, refreshing sip.

"You enjoy the soda, friend?" Starfire questioned, between large swallows of her own.

"It's…sweet," the brunette commented, "like the vixned'l drink back home." She took another taste.

"So are we going or what?" Beast Boy asked suddenly, getting up from his seat.

"Yeah, we'd better head off," Robin rose as well, draining his soda can.

A shrill ring interrupted the conversation. Taurus looked up from her soda.

"Sorry y'all, that's me. Probably my doctor…he's always worryin' somethin' horrid. I'll be back once I've convinced him that I'm not out gettin' myself killed…" The brunette laughed to herself as she exited the room and flipped open her Tamaranian communicator, which looked like a small Earth cell phone.

"Hello?"

"Hello." The cool voice on the other end was a turbulence of shock to Taurus.

"…_You_?"

"Me."

"…How do you know my number? How do you even know I'm _alive?_"

"I have my…sources."

"Don't you go playin' me. Don't you _dare._ Not after…everything. What the hell do ya'll want?"

"Merely your…assistance." Taurus cringed.

"Forget it. I don't help dirty _scum_ like ya'll."

"I think you might want to reconsider."

"Reconsider? _Ha_! Now you listen here ya traitorous, worthless piece of horse crap, ya'll best be hangin' up right about now or I swear I'll find you and shoot a round of lasers so far up your ass that not even Virgo's healin' would be able to save ya." There was a hanging silence on the other end. With a final, decisive sigh, the voice spoke.

"Gun happy as always, Taurus. I would've expected at least a _bit_ of improvement, although I must say it's one of the things I miss most about you."

"Oh shut up you-" The voice cut her off before she could spew more insults.

"Fine, have it your way. I'll leave you alone…for now. But I assure you that you'll deeply regret calling me-"

"A traitorous, worthless piece of horse crap? Not like you don't deserve the title after-"

"Taurus, for now, this is goodbye. You haven't heard the last of me." There was a click on the other end of the line.

The brunette Tamaranian shuddered and flipped her phone shut, inhaled deeply, then opened the door to return to the living room.

"Did your doctor burden you with inquiry? Did you assure him that you are well taken care of?" Starfire flew to her friend immediately, worry lines creasing her forehead.

"Don't worry, honey, I told him off good for not trustin' me," Taurus smiled kindly, then surveyed the rest of the Titans, who were all up and heading towards the door. "Y'all goin' somewhere?"

"I think you mean _we_," Beast Boy corrected, grinning despite his still hesitant disposition around the gun-happy alien girl.

"After your little freak out this afternoon, we decided you needed a break," Cyborg continued. "At first we were just gonna go out for pizza…but you had it rough. There's a club downtown owned by some rich chick in Gotham…Rose Canton. Grand opening was a couple weeks ago, but I've heard it's cool."

"_Sinner Circle_," Raven put in, her gravely tone making the name sound particularly intriguing.

"So…y'all don't think I'm a completely incompetent fool?" Taurus glanced at the Titans, who looked back at her with various forms of confusion.

"Why would we?" Robin questioned, one eye slightly bigger than the other.

"You've had bad past experiences. No one blames you for remembering them…and hating those memories," Raven commented with a small smile.

"Y…you mean you _all_ know about…I told Cyborg, and Starfire…"

"I told Robin," Starfire admitted, eyes downcast, "shortly after the medication raised your level of paranoia and caused you to attack him."

"After that, we figured everyone should be filled in," Cyborg stepped forward. "We didn't mean to-"

"Offend you or anything! Really!" Beast Boy's expression was frantic. He was obviously afraid that he was going to get a laser held up to his head again.

"No. It's fine. I don't mind, really," the brunette smiled again, easing the tension from the air.

"Please, the _Sinner Circle_ far exceeds the club Blackfire once convinced us to visit! We did _not _enjoy that club," Starfire's eyes gave off a faint glow, but Robin put a hand on her shoulder and she cooled off.

"So you coming Taurus?" The Boy Wonder gestured towards the door with his other hand.

Taurus could still feel the shivers running up and down her spine from the call she'd received. All she wanted to do right now was forget about that voice. The same voice that taunted her…

"I'm in."

* * *

I wrote this chapter piece by piece, totally out of order. I'm sorry it was so boring…it was even boring to WRITE, with the exception of a couple scenes. There were just some things I NEEDED to establish, and this chapter was the only way to do it. Next chapter is the club, and I know you'll like it.

Cheers to Rose/MissRosieReal for letting me use her badass club, _Sinner Circle._

Next update will be soon, I SWEAR. Mostly because I'll actually have LOADS of fun with EVERY part of the next few chapters.

Love,  
SushiChica


	9. Sugar and Spice

I'm SO SORRY for the long wait; I only hope this chapter's worth it.

**At risk of sounding egotistical, I really liked the way the songs in this chapter mixed together, so I made a playlist of them. If anyone would like to get this playlist (they're all amazing songs), I'd be happy to send it to you. Just be sure to tell me in your review and leave me a way to contact you. I might even throw in a bonus song by one of the artists (Megan McCauley) because even though it didn't make the cut for this chapter, it's still a fabulous song.**

**Disclaimer: **I do not own the Teen Titans, or any of the following songs (in the order that they appear): "Lying Is The Most Fun A Girl Can Have Without Taking Her Clothes Off" by Panic! At the Disco, "Under Pressure" by Queen, "The Middle" by Jimmy Eat World, "I Think I'm Paranoid" by Garbage, "London Bridge" by Fergie, "It's Not The Fall That Hurts" by The Caesars, "Chaos" by Mute Math, "Tap That" by Megan McCauley, "Here It Goes Again" by OK Go, "Wind It Up" by Gwen Stefani, and finally "Disease" by Matchbox 20. Yeah, lotsa music this time around.

**Dedication:** To all the artists whose songs I used. I love ALL of you. Except…well, I'm really not such a huge fan of Panic! At the Disco, but the lyrics were SO PERFECT to open up the fic that I really couldn't resist.

* * *

_I've got more wit, a better kiss, a hotter touch, a better fuck  
__Than any boy you'll ever meet, sweetie you had me  
Girl I was it, look past the sweat, a better love deserving of  
Exchanging body heat in the passenger seat  
No, no, no, you know it will always just be me _

Let's get these teen hearts beating faster, faster  
So testosterone boys and harlequin girls,  
Will you dance to this beat, and hold a lover close?  
So testosterone boys and harlequin girls,  
Will you dance to this beat, and hold a lover close?

Rose Canton was not happy.

She should've been, there was no doubt about that. After just one week of operation in Jump City, her club _Sinner Circle_ had made triple the amount of its leading competitors in the area, not to mention a considerable amount more than the original _Circle_ she's established in Gotham. But right now, none of that seemed to matter.

One of the many monitors that paneled an entire wall of the control room from floor to ceiling flickered ever so slightly, and the club owner leaned over to inspect it with narrowed, calculating eyes.

"Jack!" She barked, shooting a vicious glare over her shoulder.

"Yeah?" Rose's head of security trotted obediently to her side, careful to avoid eye contact with his employer. She was using _The Voice_, and _The Voice_ was generally accompanied by _The Look_. One on its own was intimidating enough. A combination of both could probably kill him.

"Do you see this?" Rose swung her chair to the side so that she was facing Jack, but her finger remained on the screen.

"I…guess?" Colored lights and silhouettes of club goers danced merrily on the screen.

"What exactly do you see?"

"Um, people. Dancing people," Jack decided, shrugging. "So what? It's a club, Miss Canton-"

"Not _that_, you idiot. The flickering on the monitor. What's hindering my feed?"

"Aah, I see," the head of security couldn't actually see any flickering for what his life was worth, but he played along for the sake of his job. Because when Rose Canton saw flickering, there _was _flickering, even if it was invisible to everyone except her. She had seven fired heads of security to prove it. "It's probably just a loose wire or something. Maybe interference from another camera." Jack shrugged but continued staring doggedly at the screen, knowing that he was still at risk of _The Look_.

"I suggest you find that loose wire or interfering camera and fix it, Jack. _Now_," Rose Canton was indeed glaring, however this time Jack decided to risk untimely death by _The Look_ to display an expression of utter disbelief.

"_Find_ the loose wire or interfering camera?"

"Do you require a hearing aid?" His employer's laser beam stare had seemingly gotten _more_ vicious since the last time he'd made the mistake of establishing eye contact, during the first hour of the first day of his employment. Whoever said a steady, focused gaze when your boss spoke to you was the key to success in the business world had obviously never met Rose Canton.

"Miss Canton, you have over one hundred and fifty ridiculously well hidden cameras covering every inch of this club, all of which are approximately the size of my thumbnail. Each of these cameras have about three hundred wires that you've had rerouted ten times then connected to the monitors. You have tighter surveillance for this club than the CIA would for an undercover base in mother freakin' Iraq. You can't honestly be asking me to locate the source of a tiny bit of interference that hardly hinders your view, especially during our busiest time of night. A view, I might add, that you get from five or six _other_ cameras at different angles."

_Please don't fire me, please don't fire me, please don't fire me, please don't-_

"Jack?"

"Yes Miss Canton?" He'd opted to avert his gaze again. The head of security could've sworn that his employer had burned a twin set of holes straight through his eyes and into his brain during the entire seventy four seconds he'd been staring directly at her.

He'd been counting.

"Do you _enjoy_ the one hundred and seventy five thousand dollars a year that I pay you to keep my club security tighter than a CIA base in mother freakin' Iraq?"

Jack swallowed hard. He could practically feel the flesh on his face sizzling. "Yeah, I do."

"How much do you like it?" Rose's left index finger was tracing invisible patterns into the arm of her chair, but her gaze never wavered.

"Um…" Jack thought about his upscale apartment and the brand new BMW he'd only leased a week ago. "A lot." He really needed to figure out how to pull off that whole _smoldering look_ thing. Maybe it would work on his subordinates.

"Then I'd suggest you start looking through those many, many wires and cameras. It's what I pay you for."

Jack left without another word, but not before checking his dim reflection in the supposedly flickering screen's surface. No need for skin grafts, as far as he could tell, although he'd be sure to seek proper medical attention the following morning. If looks could kill, Rose would be the last surviving person on the planet. But Jack knew full well that he'd never quit his job, and that he'd jump through the flaming hoops of hell's circus to keep it for as long as he possibly could.

After all, he really did like that BMW.

_Pressure  
__Pushing down on me  
Pressing down on you  
__No man ask for  
Under pressure_

Cyborg got an uneasy feeling about the club as soon as he walked through the door. His internal scanners were going berserk in his head, pointing out over twenty five otherwise invisible cameras in the immediate area. Either the owner of _Sinner Circle_ was extremely paranoid, or there was something going down that no one was supposed to accidentally stumble onto. He'd heard of drug lords and gang leaders residing in the basements of clubs such as this one, but it all seemed so…cliché.

Taurus seemed to be entertained, if not a little lost among the chaotic dance floor at the center of _Sinner Circle_. He considered asking her to dance, but then thought better of it and chose instead to move toward the seat next to Raven at the sleek, modern looking bar. Her fingers were wrapped around a steaming cup of green tea and though her eyes were wandering the sea of Jump City youth, they constantly flickered back to a loitering Beast Boy, who also looked slightly uncomfortable among the few girls that surrounded him. Usually he'd be one to enjoy the lavish attention, but tonight he appeared to be trying to ignore them.

"If you ask me whether or not I'm okay again," Raven droned with a sip of tea as Cyborg approached, "I'll club you over the head with my bar stool."

"I was actually just gonna get a soda and talk to you about something _non_-Beast Boy related."

"Oh. Take a seat."

"Thanks," Cyborg observed the throng of people quickly. "You seen Robin and Star?"

"I lost track of them as soon as they got on the dance floor. They're probably participating in the dry sex orgy with all the other sacks of skin, bones, and hormones out there."

"I see," Cyborg nodded slowly and took a peanut from the dish between Raven and him.

"Rick? Cyborg would like a soda," the empath spoke to the lone man behind the bar as she gestured casually toward her robotic friend.

"We've been here less than ten minutes and you're already on a first name basis with the bartender?"

"He has a name tag," Raven spat with an annoyed look as Rick passed the soda over the counter.

Cyborg shook his head. "Right. Sure. Okay."

_It just takes some time  
__Little girl  
__You're in the middle of the ride  
Over and over__  
__It'll be just fine  
Over and over  
__It'll be alright, alright_

Beast Boy didn't know what bothered him more about the blond girl hanging off of his arm; her constant giggling, high pitched voice, the rapidly increasing odds that she had at least for kinds of STDs, or her distinct inability to discern a wombat from her left arm. Maybe he'd been hanging out with Raven too much, but he had no idea some girls were so incredibly boring. Or whorish.

Or dumb.

"You like animals, right?" The girl asked for what seemed like the fifth time. "I saw the cutest stray dog yesterday and I saved it from getting runned over!"

"_Run_ over, you mean?" Beast Boy raised an eyebrow at her.

The girl gave him a questioning look. "What?"

"A dog can't get _runned_ over. Last time I checked, _runned_ wasn't a word. It's _run_ over."

"Uh…okay."

Beast Boy considered her carefully. "Have you ever read anything by Earnest Hemmingway? Or Edgar Allan Poe?" He watched as the girl's eyes grew vacant as she tried to find an answer.

"Weren't they…presidents or something?" Her face suddenly lit up. "Didn't that second guy, Abe Allan Hoe or whatever, didn't he give that famous speech? About blacks and whites or something?"

The Changeling almost choked on his laughter. "Never mind."

_You can look but you can't touch  
I don't think I like you much  
Heaven knows what a girl can do  
Heaven knows what you've got to prove_

Contrary to Raven's belief, Robin and Starfire were not busy dry humping with the oversexed under-thirty's that took up the floor of _Sinner Circle_. Rather, they were entertaining themselves by observing the action.

"I do believe that man has grebnaks of his own," Starfire commented, pointing at a sizable youth that most club goers were making noticeable efforts to avoid. "Is this common on earth?"

"No," Robin assured her, shaking his head but smiling at her question. "Not at all."

"I must admit that I am most relieved to hear it."

"Is that Taurus?" The Boy Wonder gestured toward a pale brown Stetson that seemed to float about the crowd of heads.

Starfire squinted to see in spite of the off-colored lights and constantly moving people. "Yes, I think-" Suddenly the crowd broke, and the couple could see that Taurus was very obviously involved in a heated argument with a sleazy looking twenty-something year old, and her hands were going for her guns.

"Taurus!" Both Starfire and Robin shot forward instantly, although it was Starfire who cried out, and dragged the newcomer to the side of the club, away from the startled, still sleazy looking guy.

"That jerk practically had a hand up my skirt!" Taurus shouted venomously over the pounding music. "Why'd you pull me away? I was about to-"

"You can't just shoot innocent people," Robin tried to explain.

"That man was not even _close_ to what I'd call innocent, honey."

"Things are different on Earth," Starfire said patiently, her hand still on Taurus' arm. "You cannot simply shoot someone you find to be bothersome. These people are humans, friend. They do not possess our ability to withstand great damage. At best you may punch these men Raven calls _dick-brained perverts_, but you must _not_ shoot unless he is armed, as those teenagers were yesterday."

Robin raised an eyebrow at the expression his girlfriend had coined. He'd be having a talk with Raven later.

"Tamaranians are warriors, Star. Born and raised. You _know_ that," Taurus had calmed, but was obviously still irritated.

"But we are not _on_ Tamaran." There was a short pause, then a deep sigh from the brunette girl.

"Fine. You're right. I need to lose this idiot, though," she threw a dirty look over her shoulder at the guy who still seemed to be staring her, then shot a suddenly devious glance at Starfire. "Wanna dance, honey?"

Starfire was suddenly grinning excitedly. "I would very much like to. Robin, if you do not mind…"

"Go," he nodded toward the dance floor before she could even finish. "Have fun."

"He just wants to see some girl-on-girl action," Taurus commented dryly, loud enough for both Starfire _and_ Robin to hear before leading her best friend to the dance floor.

The Boy Wonder smirked, leaned against the wall, and watched them, well aware that he hadn't actually denied the accusation.

_And I'm like get up out my face  
__'Fore I turn around and spray your ass with mace  
__My lips make you wanna have a taste  
__You got that?_

If Raven's emotions controlled her body temperature, she'd have been dead from fever in seconds. She'd given up on casual glances (to hell with dignity) and now her smoldering eyes refused to leave Beast Boy's back. Of course, they weren't going out. And _of course_ he had every right to be flirting with the gathering crowd of silly bimbettes, probably all card carrying members of the _Under 50 IQ Points Club_, that hung all over him. What infuriated her was that, despite all her pent up vindictive rage, she couldn't think of any way to get back at him that she'd actually consider utilizing.

Unfortunately, Raven's emotions did not control her temperature, but her powers, and the glass in her hand had burst long before she could to anything to stop it.

"Trying to figure out how to make him as jealous as he's making you?" Cyborg asked, picking up the pieces of ceramic cup that Raven was too preoccupied to collect herself and handing Rick a ten dollar bill to cover the damage as the bartender mopped up the splattered tea.

"No," she lied flatly, "and I thought you said you weren't here to talk about Beast Boy?"

"I wasn't, except you haven't looked away from him for the past twenty minutes. I figured I'd point out that you're jealous, in case you weren't already aware."

"I'm not jealous," Raven insisted heatedly, her gaze unwavering.

"Sure you're not," Cyborg said in an irritatingly condescending tone. "But you want him to be."

"Whatever."

"Just ask a guy to dance," the half robot suggested. "I'm sure some emo kid is dying to dance with you. Maybe literally, depending whether or not he's got his razor on hand."

"Shut up," Raven snarled, hardly _proud_ of her reputation with the obviously deluded youth of today's society. "I couldn't do something like that."

"Why not?" Cyborg took a large gulp of soda and burped loudly. Raven cringed with disgust.

"Because I'm not that kind of girl. You _know_ me Cyborg, I'm completely awkward around strangers." There was a pause in the conversation but pounding music filled the silence.

"Y'know, I don't think he's even enjoying the company of those girls," Cyborg commented causally.

"Oh, he's loving it. He's soaking it all in."

"So just ask a guy to dance and even the playing field."

Raven looked at her friend in the eyes, her expression hauntingly sad. "I just can't."

After another pause, in which some drunken teen tripped and landed face first at the foot of Cyborg's bar stool, the cybernetic man shrugged and took another long drink of soda.

"Suit yourself."

_It's not the fall that hurts  
__It's when you hit the ground_

Before the Titans, before Earth, before two long years of recovery from just two days of Gordanian captivity and the separation and the war, Taurus had loved to dance. Nothing of the traditional Tamaranian sort, with all the growling and the stomping and occasional majestic arm sweeping, but just plain let-yourself-go-and-move-with-the-music dancing. And who better to have as a partner than the eclipsed princess of Tamaran? They had the ability to move as one, Starfire and she, and their captain in the army had never let them forget it whenever they completed any given training exercise together.

And now Starfire had her by the hands; spinning her, moving her. The music egged them on, drove them. She was laughing harder and smiling more than she had in a very long time. She remembered this feeling despite its lengthy absence, and it had certainly been worth the wait. It welled up inside of her like a balloon that she prayed to X'hal would never burst. It felt familiar, it felt right.

Happiness.

_All my girls get down on the floor  
__Back to back, drop it down real low  
__I'm such a lady but I'm dancin' like a ho  
__But you know, I don't give a fuck  
__So here we go_

The two girls stumbled over to Robin, out of breath but giggling, still high on the dance buzz.

"Enjoy yourselves?" The Boy Wonder asked, smirking at their mirth.

"Question is, did _you_ enjoy yourself?" Taurus asked, raising a suggestive eyebrow.

"Taurus…" Starfire tried to intervene, but her friend continue.

"It turned you on, didn't it?"

"Uh," Robin shifted uncomfortably.

"It turned him on," Taurus assured Starfire with a smile. "I'm off to the bar. Later." She departed with a carefree laugh.

"She is…_very_ Tamaranian at heart," Starfire let a nervous giggle escape her.

"Obviously you are too," Robin commented casually, pulling her to him and kissing her. "Wanna dance?"

"I thought you did not enjoy dancing?" The princess teased, taking his hand.

"What doesn't kill you makes you stronger."

Starfire withdrew her hand nonchalantly at his words. "If you are only participating to appease me and will not enjoy it, then perhaps I should-"

"Hey," Robin reached for her arm, gently touched her elbow, froze her in place. She was baiting him. He liked it. "I like dancing with you."

_My mind has been a racin'  
Got something inside of me thats waking  
Come girl, come inside, I know ya  
There's a fire inside of me thats growing  
__  
_

"Everything cool 'round here?" Taurus asked, taking a seat beside Cyborg at the bar.

"I'm fine, Raven's not," Cyborg responded when the empathy made no apparent effort to speak, or even acknowledge Taurus' presence. She was back to staring at Beast Boy and his throng of giggling girls.

Taurus leaned forward, to look past Cyborg. "Honey, are you alright?"

"_Fine_. Just like Cyborg, I'm _fine_," Raven spat hostilely, grabbing a drink off the bar without shifter her gaze in the slightest. She took a large gulp, shuddered slightly, and turned toward her two companions. "Actually, that's a lie. I'm not fine. I'm _beyond_ not fine. To be completely honest, I'm so not fine that I'd very much like to shred this club to pieces from the foundation up, but I can't do that because I'm a Teen Titan. I have an _example_ to set. _Azar_." Another swig. "I want those cheap whores off the jerk who was my boyfriend-"

"Uh…Raven?" Cyborg raised a finger in an attempt to interrupt her, but she took another drink from the glass in her hand and continued.

"I want to make Beast Boy, who I feel the need to reiterate is my jerk ex-boyfriend, just as jealous as he's making me and I want to _enjoy_ it-"

"Excuse me, Miss?" The man sitting at Raven's immediate left tapped her shoulder experimentally.

"_Please_ don't touch me, sir," the empathy turned back toward her friends, downed the last of her drink, and slammed the now empty cup on the bar countertop. "And I think I'm going to find some pathetic excuse for a human being, excuse me, an _emo guy_, to dance with me _right now._" With that, the frustrated dark girl slid off the barstool and stalked into the throng of dancing youth.

Cyborg shot Taurus a slightly disturbed look, then gave the man who'd been tapping Raven's shoulder another ten dollar bill. "Sorry about that, man. It's been a hard week for her." Taurus bit her lip nervously as her eyes followed the empathy into the heart of the club.

"Uh, honey, should you tell Raven that she just drank that man's pint of beer, or should I?"

_Now the drinks start pourin'  
__And my speech starts slurrin'  
__Everybody start lookin' real good_

Beast Boy had no idea how the crowd of girls had grown over the past twenty minutes, but somehow there were more of them. It was like they were multiplying; a freaky thought. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he wondered why this kind of thing had never happened _before_ he'd gone out with Raven, when he actually would've appreciated it.

_It's official, God hates me._

Suddenly something caught his eye. A blue cloak stuck out like a beacon among all the casually dressed club goers. He looked a little longer and realized that it was, indeed, Raven and…could she really be pressing herself up against an _emo_ boy? One of her poser _fan boys_?

"What the…" A surge of fiery jealousy burned through Beast Boy's veins. That asshole's hands were _way_ too low, and Raven hardly looked comfortable with it. Come to think of it, Raven didn't look so okay in general. Besides, that much contact with the opposite sex _couldn't_ be legal, especially when she had a–

And that's when Beast Boy realized that Raven didn't have a boyfriend after all. She was perfectly within her rights as a single to dance with whomever she pleased, and although it killed him to watch it, there wasn't very much he could do about it. Beast Boy turned away from the image, hating himself more every second, clenching his fists, and beaming very violent thoughts at the emo guy. Although with his luck, they'd be _eloping_ later that night.

_I know you stay true when my world is false  
__Everything around is breaking down to chaos  
__I only see you when my sight is lost  
__Everything around is breaking down to chaos_

"You really don't think we should do anything about this?" Taurus was watching a transformed Raven with raised eyebrows.

"I think we'd be too late. The damage is done," Cyborg shrugged casually. "Raven's trashed."

"After one accidental drink?"

"The girl's never had a drop of alcohol in her _life_, and she just downed a pint."

"You sure she's not gonna pass out or somethin'?" Taurus shifted her concerned gaze to the half robot at her side.

"If she does, you're helping me carry her back to the Tower," he smiled at her, and she shook her head and continued to watch the drama unfold on the dance floor. While her attention was elsewhere, Cyborg chose to watch her, and despite the distorted light he was suddenly struck with the realization that Taurus was not very beautiful.

She was certainly pretty, but not beautiful; not exotic like Cyborg had come to expect most Tamaranians to look. Not beautiful, like he remembered her sister Aquarius. Rather, she was striking, the kind of girl with features that captured your attention as soon ass he walked in the room but lost her sparkle under closer evaluation. Cyborg wondered why it had taken him so long to notice it. Perhaps it was the unpredictable personality beneath the pretty face that had kept him fooled.

"It really ain't worth it."

"Wait, what?"

"Y'all alright?" Taurus waved a hand in front of his face in hopes of getting his attention; drawing him from his thoughts.

"Yeah," Cyborg said softly. "I'm cool."

"I was talkin' about this whole…Raven and Beast Boy thing. Is it really worth her dignity? Her sanity?" Taurus shook her head again. "It just sees like such a waste."

"He broke her heart," Cyborg noted. "I think that's worth a little revenge, even if she won't completely remember it tomorrow morning. I'm sure we could get one of the security tapes for her scrapbook if she wants it. I mean, this place is wired with enough cameras to catch her dance from six different angles.

"It's not revenge she's after," Taurus drummed her nails on the countertop absentmindedly. "It's him."

"The emo guy?"

"No," the brunette rolled her eyes. "Beast Boy. But he can't be worth that much…"

Cyborg let out a low whistle, barely audible over the club music. "And the frigid bitch resurfaces."

"What?" Taurus was suddenly much more alert as she punched her new friend lightly in the shoulder. "I'm not a frigid bitch."

"You basically just said that love isn't worth the effort."

"I said _Beast Boy_ isn't worth-"

"Have you ever seen those two look at each other? I mean, _really_ look at each other?" Cyborg sighed heavily. "There's something there. A connection. Something deep, something most people would kill to have."

Taurus smirked skeptically. "Love?"

"Something like that."

"I've given up on love."

Cyborg considered her for a moment. "I think you're scared."

"Excuse me?" A flame ignited in the Tamaranian's eyes. "I'm _not_ afraid."

"I don't think you've really given up on love, I think you're just scared of it, because love means putting your trust in a male again. You've given up on _yourself_, in that way, not love," Cyborg shrugged. "Just what I think."

"I'm _not_ afraid," Taurus repeated stubbornly, almost desperately. "Not of males, not of trust, _certainly_ not of trusting males-"

"Then dance with me."

Taurus halted her angry rant to process his words. "Excuse me?"

"You say you're not afraid. You say you trust guys. So trust me. Dance with me," he looked her square in the eye. "Prove it to me."

"I…" Taurus bit her lip hesitantly, then hopped off her barstool with renewed energy. "Fine. I mean, I guess we can't just sit here all night. Plus, we'll be closer to Raven when she finally gets enough oxygen to her brain and realizes who she's dancin' with. We might be able to prevent property damage."

Cyborg smirked at her sudden surge of determination. "So the only reason you're agreeing to dance with me is to keep an eye on Raven?" Taurus considered this, her expression soft, almost playful.

"Maybe."

_I know you wanna talk to me  
__Just tell me what you wanna see  
__And maybe we can do something  
__That sometimes leads to other things_

One part of Raven's brain had absolutely no idea why she was dancing with this guy. He was repulsive in every conceivable way. His breath reeked of beer, although perhaps hers did too, his grimy hands were clutching her bug, his hair was greasy and combed over his inch thick eyeliner-encased eyes, there were two studs in his chin and a safety pin stuck in the side of his lip, and he had her pressed so close to him that she could feel a prominent male-exclusive muscle that she did _not_ want to feel through his inhumanly skinny jeans.

The other, larger, drunker portion of her brain was swimming obliviously and couldn't have cared less about any of that. It was also this other side that encouraged her to press back on him; egg the guy on.

Raven didn't even know how she'd ended up dancing with him in the first place. He was just the first guy she fell on, and his name…Jordan? Maybe Kyle? Something generic like that. Well, who cared? Only a very small part of her was gagging at his presence. The rest just wanted to let everything go; even she knew she'd regret it later.

A few club goers at her right parted just enough for Raven to see Beast Boy gaping at her, seemingly taken aback. She smirked with a drunken satisfaction. Mission accomplished.

But he didn't keep staring, like she'd been hoping he would. No, after a few moments he simply turned back to his crowd of fan girls without much apparent concern at all. Something inside Raven snapped at that very moment, and even though her vision was getting fuzzy around the edges, she could see well enough to pull Ray—Matt? Well, whatever his name was—even closer to her and press her lips to his.

_It starts out easy  
__Somethin' simple  
__Somethin' sleazy  
__Somethin' inchin' past the edge of reserve_

Robin wasn't quite sure how it had happened, but somehow dancing with Starfire had turned into making out with Starfire. Against a wall. In the darkest corner of _Sinner Circle_. With a hoard of jealous Robin fan girls throwing vicious glances in Starfire's direction.

Not that the Boy Wonder minded any of this, really. Except maybe the last part.

Her fingers were in his hair, on his torso, around his neck as he kissed every bit of bare flesh above her shoulders. She smelled like jasmines, and he couldn't really think whe she smelled like that, couldn't control himself.

Couldn't stop.

Wouldn't stop.

There was probably some Official Batman Rule that very clearly stated that making out in public, especially in costume, was strictly forbidden. Robin could hardly care less. It was only when one of Starfire's hand had found its way under his shirt and the other was teasingly fingering his belt that the Boy Wonder suddenly remembered himself; who he was, where he was, and what he was doing. He pushed her off of him so quickly and forcibly that Starfire stumbled back several feet. The alien girl's eyes were wide with shock and, if Robin was reading her correctly, a painful combination of hurt and rejection.

The fan girls were sneaking one another smiles of delight.

"I…am sorry if I have offended-"

"No, don't apologize," Robin shook his head. "I shouldn't have let it get that far, and I really shouldn't have pushed you away. I'm sorry."

Starfire's look softened. "I, like Taurus, seem to forget that I am on Earth now, and not Tamaran. Such activity is often encouraged, even celebrated there. But I understand if it is not the way of my new home. Our home."

"It's the way of our home for a lot of people," Robin corrected her with a sigh, holding a hand to his head, "just not me. Not us, not yet. For a million reasons."

"I understand," Starfire repeated, "and I am sorry."

"Don't be."

The alien girl smirked awkwardly although a slightly hurt look still lingered in her eyes. "Perhaps a drink would assist our situation."

Robin smiled at her suggestion, and the tension eased away. "I was thinking the same thing, Princess."

_I know he thinks you're fine and stuff  
__But does he know how to wind you up?_

Taurus and Cyborg had frozen in place. They'd been enjoying their casual dancing until Raven suddenly decided to _make out_ with the emo guy, and in an almost pornographic fashion.

"Intervention time?" Taurus suggested, exchanging a quick look with Cyborg, who nodded.

"Definitely. And let's hurry before she contracts herpes."

The two didn't make it far across the dance floor before another, worse kind of intervention burst through the double door entrance of the club and drew Cyborg's attention almost immediately. He was hardly the only one to notice; Beast Boy froze amongst his groupies, Robin and Starfire were already leaping off their bar stools and into fighting stances, and even Raven, drunk as she was, detached herself from her newfound emo lover long enough to notice that the Hive Five had entered _Sinner Circle._

_Feels like you made a mistake  
You made somebody__'s heart break  
But now I have to let you go  
I have to let you go _

You left a stain  
On every one of my good days  
But I am stronger than you know  
I have to let you go

No ones ever turned you over  
No ones tried  
To ever let you down,  
Beautiful girl  
Bless your heart

I got a disease  
Deep inside me  
Makes me feel uneasy, baby  
I can't live without you  
Tell me what I am supposed to do about it  
Keep your distance from me  
Don't pay no attention to me  
I got a disease

Feels like you're making a mess  
You're hell on wheels in a black dress  
You drove me to the fire  
And left me there to burn

Every little thing you do is tragic  
All my life, oh was magic  
Beautiful girl  
I can't breathe

_**I got a disease**_


End file.
